Ward & Lock's descriptive and pictorial guide to the Isle of Man ...

;Douglas to Laxey and Snaefell.antiquities of the island rather more than seventy year3 ago,says that in his time twelve stones esisted, forming an oval,the two tall ones (those now remaining) being situated atone end, and the whole standing on a mound nearly four feethigh ; and that in the centre of the oval was an excavation.An older authority says that a stone sepulchral chest wasfound there. Some of the Manx landowners are very proud ofpossessing stich ancient memorials ; but if they need a goodsizedpiece of stono to repair a wall or for building purposes,the cairn, however venerable, is likely to suffer. That suchwas the fate of the other ten stones is more than probable ;and a Manx writer assures us that these two narrowlyescaped sharing it. He tells us that the proprietor of theground they stand on once conceived the idea of removingthera, but that, when he and his assistants reached the fieldand were about to commence demolishing them, he chancedto look towards his home and thought he saw Hames issuingfrom it. He therefore returned in hot haste to extinguishthem ; and when he reached it found his house as it shouldbe, but saw the Cloven Stones on fire. " The man was toowise," our autlior adds, " to disregard so clear an omen, andthe stones have ever since remained undisturbed." " Alikely tale ! ''we think we hear some of our friends exclaim.Well, if thej' are sceptical, we cannot help it ; we give thestory as we find it, and our readers have already discovered,as AValdron did years ago, that, though genuine Manx catsare deprived of the caudal appendage common to mostanimals of the feline order, their owners are by no meanstaleless. If this marvellous account be true, it is devoutly tobe wished that similar supernatural interpositions may saveother monuments of antiquity threatened with destruction atthe hands of the present matter-of-fact generation !An old-world earthwork, in the Valley of Gliongawne, onthe opposite side of the road, is but seldom visited ; but itwill well repay examination by those interested in suchremains of bygone warfare, and certainly does not merit theneglect it has met with.Ascending the next hill, a charming outlook bursts uponus, and not the least interesting feature in the scene isLonan Church(the new church of the parish in which Laxey is situatedwe have already visited the ruins of the old church, see p. 57),an edifice in the Early English style of architectm-e, whichwill accommodate about five himdred worshippers. Like its