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blown down,) supposed to be about seven feet in height. The strange thing is, that no human being knows anything about the origin or purpose of so singular a structure. Some suppose it to be Celtic, some Gothic, some Roman; and one writer, M. Joanneau, determining its age at two thousand four hundred years, imagines that he can read in the disposition of the parts of the structure the whole astronomical system of the Celts. The twelve square compartments on the southern front are, according to him, the twelve houses of the sun; and the twenty-eight cut stones. forming the cornice of the four fronts are the twenty-eight houses of the moon. The pile itself he imagines to have been an observatory; but on this point it is urged against him, with more than plausibility, that there neither is, nor was, a staircase, outside or in, for the astronomer to ascend, and that a ladder of eighty-four feet would have been rather a difficult and dangerous avenue to science. The most common opinion, originated, we believe, by M. Millin, is, that the building, whatever people were the architects, is a sepulchral monument, and that the five pillars on the summit denote its having been raised in honour of five persons. It is supposed that the mystery might be solved by subterranean researches; but, solid and massive as the monument is, this could scarcely be attempted without danger to the whole structure.

The village of Cinq Mars is particularly neat, and, with the ruins of its castle, consisting of two round towers and a rampart tower, forms an agreeable object in the picture. The valley of the Loire is here so wide, that one would think the CHER had not only added its stream, but its valley, to those of its greater neighbour. The two rivers, in fact, occupy but one valley, running almost parallel with each other for six leagues.

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