This very possible origin, however, does not distinctly assert what may certainly be inferred—I mean the existence of some older and ruder worship, before the worship of Apollo was here established. Two arguments make this clear. In the first place, old legends consistently speak of the arrival of Apollo here; of his conflict with the powers of earth, under the form of the dragon Python; of his having undergone purification for its murder, and having been formally ceded possession by its older owners. This distinct allusion to a previous cult, and one even hostile to Apollo, but ultimately reconciled with him, is sustained by the fact that Pausanias describes in the Temple of Apollo itself two old stones—one apparently an aërolith—which were treated with great respect, anointed daily with oil, and adorned with garlands of flowers. One of these was to the Greeks the centre of the earth (_ὀμφαλός_), and beside it were two eagles in gold, to remind one of the legend that Zeus had started two eagles from the ends of the earth, and that they met at this exact spot midway. These old and shapeless stories, which occur elsewhere in Greek temples, point to the older stage of fetish worship, before the Greeks had risen to the art of carving a statue, or of worshipping the unseen deity without a gross material symbol. The researches of M. A. Lebègue, at Delos, have given us another instance. He found that the old shrine of Apollo has been made in imitation of a cave, and that in the recess of the shrine, made with large slabs of stone forming a gable over a natural fissure in the rock, there was an ancient, rude, sacred stone, on which were remaining the feet of the statue, which had afterward been added to give dignity to the improved worship. M. Lebègue’s work at Delos has been completed and superseded by M. Homolle.