The Nine Maidens are simply 9 stones in a straight line 262 feet in length at the present day; possibly, as suggested by Lukis, it may have extended originally to the monolith known as “The Fiddler,” situated some 800 yards away in a north-easterly direction. Measuring the azimuth of the alignment on Lukis’s plan, and finding the horizon elevations from the 1-inch Ordnance map, we have the following:-- Az. Hills. Decl. Star. Date. N. 28° E. 0° 0′ 37° 47′ N. Capella 1480 B.C. It may be remarked that here we have a date for the use of Capella intermediate between those obtained for the “Pipers” and the “Strippie Stones” respectively. [118] _Prehistoric Stone Monuments of the British Isles: Cornwall._ W. C. Lukis. P. 1. CHAPTER XXVIII THE CLOCK-STARS IN EGYPT AND BRITAIN. I have now finished my astronomical reconnaissance of the British monuments. I trust I have shown how important it is that my holiday task should be followed by a serious inquiry by other workers so that the approximate values with which I have had to content myself for want of time may be replaced by others to which the highest weight can be attached. This means at each circle reversed observations with a six-inch theodolite and determination of azimuths by means of observations of the sun if necessary. I propose in the present chapter to bring together the general results already obtained in cases where the inquiry has been complete enough to warrant definite conclusions to be drawn. The first result to be gathered from the observations, and one to which I attach the highest importance, is that the practice, so long employed in Egypt, of determining time at night by the revolution of a star round the pole, was almost universally followed in the British circles. This practice was to watch a first-magnitude star, which I named a “clock-star,”[119] of such a declination that it just dipped below the northern horizon so that it was visible for almost the whole of its path. Doubtless this same method of determining the flow of time during the night watches was also employed in Babylonia,[120] but there, alas! the temples, or, in other words, the astronomical observatories, have disappeared, so that only the Egyptian practice remains for us to study. _Egypt._ Let us, before we proceed, consider some results which have been gathered from the study of the Egyptian observations. One of the earliest temples in Egypt concerning which we have historical references to check the orientation results was built to carry on these night observations at Denderah, lat. N. 26° 10′. The star observed was α Ursae Majoris, decl. N. 58° 52′, passing 5° below the northern horizon; date (assuming horizon 1° high) about 4950 B.C., _i.e._, in the times of the Shemsu Heru, before Mena, as is distinctly stated in the inscriptions.