Stonehenge
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Stonehenge. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the imposing remains of an ancient place, possibly of Druidical or even more ancient worship, nine miles north of Salisbury, England. A number of moss-grown stones, sixteen feet in height and six feet in thickness, stand on end in two rings, one within the other. The outer circle is 105 feet in diameter. Flat stone slabs lying across the tops still connect a few of the pillars. It is conjectured that the roof may at one time have been complete. At the center are the remains of an ellipitical altar or sacred spot where the priests possibly went through their mysteries while the people stood far without in a sort of public square. An earthen wall fifteen feet high, a ditch thirty feet wide, and an inner wall surround the whole with a single avenue by way of entrance. The avenue divides without, one branch leading to burial mounds, the other to the public place mentioned. Antiquarians are at a loss to assign the remains of Stonehenge as to time, purpose, or people. Midst the eternal cliffs, whose strength defied The crested Roman in his hour of pride; And where the Druid's ancient cromlech frowned, And the oaks breathed mysterious murmurs round, There thronged the inspired of yore! on plain or height, In the sun's face, beneath the eye of light, And baring unto heaven each noble head, Stood in the circle, where none else might tread. --Mrs. Hemans, Stonehenge. We left the train at Salisbury and took a carriage to Amesbury, passing by Old Sarum, a bare, treeless hill, once containing the town which sent two members to Parliament--now, not a hut; and, arriving at Amesbury, stopped at the George Inn. After dinner we walked to Salisbury Plain. On the broad downs, under the gray sky, not a house was visible, nothing but Stonehenge, which looked like a group of brown dwarfs in the wide expanse,--Stonehenge and the barrows, which rose like green bosses about the plain, and a few hayricks. On the top of a mountain the old temple would not be more impressive. Far and wide a few shepherds with their flocks sprinkled the plain, and a bagman drove along the road. It looked as if the wide margin given in this crowded isle to this primeval temple were accorded by the veneration of the British race to the old egg out of which all their ecclesiastical structures and history had proceeded. Stonehenge is a circular colonnade with a diameter of a hundred feet, and enclosing a second and third colonnade within. We walked around the stones and clambered over them, to wont ourselves with their strange aspect and groupings, and found a nook sheltered from the wind among them, where Carlyle lighted his cigar. It was pleasant to see that just this simplest of all simple structures--two upright stones and a lintel laid across--had long outstood all later churches and all history, and were like what is most permanent on the face of the planet; these, and the barrows--mere mounds (of which there are a hundred and sixty within a circle of three miles about Stonehenge), like the same mound on the plain of Troy, which still makes good to the passing mariner on Hellespont the vaunt of Homer and the fame of Achilles. Within the enclosure grow buttercups, nettles; and all around, wild thyme, daisy, meadowsweet, goldenrod, thistle, and the carpeting grass. Over us, larks were soaring and singing,--as my friend said, "the larks which were hatched last year, and the wind which was hatched many thousand years ago." We counted and measured by paces the biggest stones, and soon knew as much as any man can suddenly know of the inscrutable temple. There are ninety-four stones, and there were once probably one hundred and sixty. The temple is circular and uncovered, and the situation fixed astronomically,--the grand entrances, here and at Abury, being placed exactly northeast, "as all the gates of the old cavern temples are." How came these stones here? For these sarsens, or Druidical sandstones, are not found in this neighborhood. The sacrificial stone, as it is called, is the only one in all these blocks that can resist the action of fire, and, as I read in the books, must have been brought one hundred fifty miles.--Emerson, English Traits.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a very remarkable structure composed of large artificially raised monoliths, situated on Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, England. The ancient Britons called it Main Ambers, or "sacred stones." The spot is surrounded by a ditch 50 feet wide; the outer circle consisted of 60 stones, 30 perpendicular, 20 feet high and nearly 4 feet apart. On the tops of these were 30 imposts, regularly united; within this was a second circle of 40 stones, smaller and void of imposts. There are indications of two ovals of stones intervening. Within the second circle was a cell, or adytum, in which was the altar, a huge slab huge slab of blue marble. The whole structure consisted of 140 stones. There are three entrances from the plain. The whole is surrounded by a bank of earth 15 feet high and 1,010 feet in circumference. Out of the stones composing the outer circle, 17 remain; in the inner circle 8 are entire, and fragments of 12 others are on the spot. The average elevation of the stones is 14 feet, the breadth 7 feet, and the thickness 3 feet. The inner oval consisted of about 20 smaller stones, of which 11 are standing. Scattered over the plain are about 300 tumuli, or barrows. These, when opened, have been found to contain charred human bones. Accompanying weapons and implements show that they have been utilized both by Britons and Romans for interment. In 1901, one of the great monoliths fell and was set up again. Excavations then made at the base, brought to light the stone implements originally used in cutting the monoliths. This seems to place the erection of Stonehenge before the bronze age, and the inference is that the structure is about 3,400 years old. The edifice was sold at auction in 1915 for $15,000.