Birmingham age-herald., 1894-07-13
QUAINT AND CURIOUS
STRUCTURES WITHOUT A RECORD
 FOUND IN MANY LANDS.


 dnia-E Extraordinary Caves, Towers and
 Shafts In England-Mystcries Not Likely
 to Be Cleared Up.
 Ipnumerable are the structures to which this title applies, if it be understood to mean buildings of which the record is lost. Stone circles, cyclopcan walls, the CloacD of Rome, the mounds" of western Amer ica and countless others are as puzzling as could be. We would limit the term, therefore, to elaborate edifices, the mere use or design of which is unintelligible. Even then very few examples out of multitude can be dealt with in our space.
 The Noraghe of Sardinia perhaps have exercised human ingenuity upon q greater scale for longer time than any other structures on earth. Greeks and Romans speculated over them and learned men of all countries are speculating still. Aristo- tie mentions them with admiration So does Pausanias They are in brief towers standing on an artificial mound, 80 to 60 feet high and 100 to 300 feet in circum- ference at the base. Some which have lower platform arc more than double this latter dimension. The material is stone, regularly worked with the hammer. They show neither sculpture nor inscriptions nor cement
 Some of the blocks arc immense. A very low entrance, but broad, leads by a gentle incline into passage Of good he ght, communicating by another very low doorway with domcd chamber Is to 20 feet in diameter and 20 to 25 feet high. Small holes on either hand betray the existence of two or four cells, cut in tho thickness of the wall, several feet in width and depth and height. From this dome spiral passage rising steeply, takes ono to another just above, somewhat small CT, and on again to the broken top of the Noraghe-for none is entire.
 What can we make of buildings like these? Moro than 5000 have been count ed. Some authorities argue that they were toinbs, some trophies of victory, some fire temples some observatories, somo even houses It is easy to show that several of these explanations will not serve, but one cannot possibly tell what forms of build ing religion may command. On that ac- count only it may be supposed that the Noraghe were temples or giant altars for sacrifice. Nothing has been found in them. But other remains, not less pug zling, are generally found close by, and be it remarked-nowhere else. These are the 'sepultre de is gigantis" (giants' graves). Low walls of rough stones in- close a parallelogram sometimes 40 feet long and 6 feet broad paved with enor- nous slabs.
 They always lie northwest to southeast, at the latter angle being "headstone, D a sin gle block not less than 10 feet high, often 15 Behind this away from the grave" the walls are prolonged to make the scg- ment of circle. At the foot of the head stone is square aperture finely cut. Of these extraordinary objects many hun dreds remain. They represent prodigious labor and no little skill in mechanics, but all that research or ingenuity has dis covered is as yet that nobody was buried in them
 We have variety of puzzle buildings in this country. Tho term may be applied to the dones of Essex and Middlesex-per- pondicuar shafts sunk in the earth, with lateral chambers at the bottom. The most ingenious antiquaries have not yet shown who dug these extraordinary caves nor what was their purpose. But it is evident that they might serve either as granaries or dwellings or places of refuge in time of trouble. All these theories have been ar gued. Therefore the denes and other such unexplained but not inexplicable myste- ries may be put aside-the Martello towers, for example. Things downright unac- countable remain.
 The most speculative only venture to suggest that such or such may have been the object in building the raths of Kerry. Hundreds of these raths are still un- touched, hundreds have been explored and hundreds at least destroyed. They arc ap- parently mounds of earth overgrown with grass, perhaps 20 feet high and 60 feet in diameter. When the turf is removed we see an outer wall of stone encircling the space, supporting generally roof of large slabs, but sometimes the substructure is sunk in the ground, when tho slabs do not appear to form roof, but pavement.
 Somewhere in this wall is the entrance 8 narrow holo upon the level of the earth. Crawling through it-but mindful of the poisonous gases which accumulate under such conditions-we find that tho inclosed space is intersected by walls which split it up into chambers-not less than six-10 to 12 feet long and AZ to feet high. They all communicate with one another by holes just large enough for man to crawl through, but the archway is hewn stone excellently fashioned. Each chamber has an outlet for ventilation in the sur rounding wall. Sometimes there is rude fireplace in that most distant from the en- trance though it remains to be discovered "a minor puzzle-how tho occupants es- capped suffocation when the fire was lit
 The floor of a rath is always dry, for spot with natural drainage was chosen There's nothing more to be said about them. No tool nor bone has ever been found, excepting objects evidently intro drced at modern date. What can be the purpose of these buildings2 They were not meant for hiding places, for the rath always stands conspicuous. They were not in the way of forts, since the enemy had but to close the ventilators, and all within must stiae. If they were dwellings,