"At first sight it would scarcely attract attention, but a closer observation reveals the remarkable position which it occupies. The total weight of the immense boulder has been variously estimated at from forty to fifty tons, and its bulk at from 500 to 700 cubic feet. It is almost perfectly round, much resembling a huge orange, and so nicely balanced on a table of stone as to be easily set in motion by a single man, providing the operator exerts his strength on the north or south sides. On either of the other sides the combined strength of forty elephants would not be sufficient to cause the least oscillation. Although it is easily rocked, we are assured that as many men as could surround it would be unable to dislodge it from the pivot on which it rests."(161) 161) The St. Louis (Mo.) Republican. The writer of the above, who was evidently ignorant of the extent to which these monuments are scattered over the earth, seemed to regard it as a singular freak of Nature with no significance other than that of a natural curiosity. The round towers of Ireland, over the origin of which there has in the past been so much controversy, are now pretty generally admitted to be analogous in their use and design to Stonehenge, Abury, and other extant monolithic structures. Many writers have endeavored to prove that these towers were belfries used in connection with Christian churches; others that they were purgatorial columns or penitential heights, similar in design to the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites. Others again have argued that they were used as beacons and others that they were intended simply as receptacles for the sacred fire known to have formerly been in use in the British Isles. Although numberless arguments have been brought forward to refute these theories, it is thought that the expensive architecture alone of the elegant and stately columns known as Round Towers contradicts all these "guesses," and that their grandeur and almost absolute indestructibility proclaim for them a different origin from that of the lowly and miserable huts which in a later age were erected beside them for purposes of worship by the Romish Christians. The same objection is made also against the theory that these monuments were erected in memory of the several defeats of the Danes. As an answer to the argument that they were erected by the Danes to celebrate their victories, it is declared that such is the character of the hieroglyphics upon them as to make this theory worthless. Besides, throughout the country of the Danes and Ostmen, there is nowhere to be found an example of architectural splendor such as is displayed in the construction of these columns. In the north of Scotland was one of these monuments upon which were depicted war-like scenes, horses and their riders, warriors brandishing their weapons, and troops shouting for victory, while on the other side was a sumptuous cross, beneath which were two figures, the one evidently