12 stones or stumps in situ, 10 prostrate, 4 missing.
SARSEN TRILITHONS.
5 piers in situ, 3 prostrate, 5 missing.
From this list of missing blue stones we may safely deduct two; two pieces of rock are known to be beneath the turf, and there may be others. The most satisfactory derivation of Sarsens or Sassens is from the Anglo-Saxon word for a rock or stone—ses, plural sesen or sesons. The Inner Circle of blue stones and Inner Horse-shoe are composed of the “Blue Stones,” igneous rocks.
DERIVATION OF AMESBURY.
“On Salisbury Plain stand the ruins of the weird Circle of Revolution, Cor y Coeth in Welsh, the Circle of Dominion, the holy anointed stones of Ambresbiri (ambree, anointed; biri, Hebrew for holy ones), at once a sanctuary and a sundial (3000 years ago the only clock in Britain), regulated by the sun and moon for days and years. But the beautiful old British names since the sixth century have been blotted out by the terrible title Stonehenge or stone gallows—Stanhengen in Anglo-Saxon. A permanent gallows of stone was used by the Saxons for the execution of criminals, and wishing to aim a death-blow at British power, no surer way was found by the invaders than by hanging British leaders upon the consecrated stones of their revered temple. The road from the village of Amesbury to the Circle is still called Gallow’s Hill.”
From Mrs. Gordon’s Pamphlet.
DERIVATION OF DRUID.
An Arabic (and Persian) word meaning Holy Men come from the valley of the Euphrates. Mrs. Gordon considers Merlin (the Bismarck of his age) as the builder of Stonehenge; also that Aurelius Ambrosius, by his own wish, was buried within the Circle of Stonehenge.