The impressive stone circle stands near the top of a gently sloping hill on Salisbury Plain about thirty miles from the English Channel. The stones are visible over the hills for a mile or two in every direction. Stonehenge is one of over fifty thousand prehistoric "megalithics" in Europe.

As Stonehenge is approached, the forty giant stones seem to touch the sky. Most of the stones stand twenty-four or more feet high. Some stones weigh as much as forty tons. Others are smaller, weighing only five tons. At first glance, the stones may seem to be a natural formation. But a closer look shows that only human imagination and determination could have created Stonehenge.

II. The Stonehenge today looks quite different from the Stonehenge of old. Wind and weather have destroyed a little of Stonehenge over the ages. People have destroyed much more.

Today, less than half of the original stones still stand as their builders planned.

Later in the Bronze Age, the monument underwent some minor changes. Some of the blue stones from Prescelly were recovered and put in the space outlined by the five trilithons. The structure then consisted of three concentric circles of upright stones.

Stonehenge II (2150 to 2000 B.C.)

This second phase was never fully completed. Suddenly it was replaced by a new, more grandiose project, and the blue stones were taken away. No one knows where they were taken. The third phase began almost immediately after this occurrence.

Other stones were "quarried" over the centuries as free building material and hauled away. Even into this century, visitors have come with hammers to carry away a chip of stone with them.

IV. The twelfth-century English writer and historian, Geoffrey of Monmouth, first recorded Merlin's building of Stonehenge in his famous book History of the Kings of Britain. Geoffrey claimed that his book was a translation of "a certain very ancient book written in the British language." However, no other scholar or historian knows of the existence of such a book.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)