There is evidence that the circle conditions at the Merry Maidens were once similar to those at Stenness, Stanton Drew, the Hurlers, Tregaseal and Botallack, that is that there was more than one, the numbers running from 2 to 7. Mr. Horton Bolitho, without whose aid in local investigations this chapter in all probability would never have been written, in one of his visits came across “the oldest inhabitant,” who remembered a second circle. He said, “It was covered with furze and never shown to antiquarians”; ultimately the field in which it stood was ploughed up and the stones removed. It is to prevent a similar fate happening to the “Merry Maidens” themselves that Lord Falmouth will not allow the field in which they stand to be ploughed, and all antiquarians certainly owe him a debt of gratitude for this and other proofs of his interest in antiquities. Mr. Bolitho carefully marked the site thus indicated on a copy of the 25-inch map. I shall subsequently show that the circle which formerly existed here, like the others named, was located on an important sight-line. Mr. Horton Bolitho was good enough to make a careful examination of the barrows A and B of Borlase.[114] In A (S. 69° W.) he found a long stone still lying in the barrow, suggesting that the barrow had been built round it, and that the apex of the barrow formed a new alignment. In B there is either another recumbent long stone or the capstone of a dolmen. This suggests work for the local antiquarians. I should state that there may be some doubt about barrow A, for there are two not far from each other with approximate azimuths S. 69° W. and S. 64° W. The destruction of these and other barrows was probably the accompaniment of the reclamation of waste lands and the consequent interference with antiquities which in Cornwall has mostly taken place since 1800. [Illustration: _Photo. by Lady Lockier._ FIG. 52.--The Merry Maidens (looking East).] But it did not begin then, nor has it been confined to barrows. Dr. Borlase, in his parochial memoranda under date September 29, 1752, describes a monolith 20 feet above ground, and planted 4 feet in it, the “Men Peru” (stone of sorrow) in the parish of Constantine. A farmer acknowledged that he had cut it up, and had made twenty gate-posts out of it. My wife and I visited the Merry Maidens at Easter, 1905, for the purpose of making a reconnaissance. Mr. Horton Bolitho and Mr. Cornish were good enough to accompany us. On my return to London I began work on the 25-inch Ordnance map, and subsequently Colonel R. C. Hellard, R.E., director of the Ordnance Survey, was kind enough to send me the true azimuths of the Pipers. In October, 1905, Mr. Horton Bolitho and Captain Henderson, whose help at the Hurlers I have already had an opportunity of acknowledging, made a much more complete survey of the adjacent standing stones and barrows.