Note 13 — Chapter V · Megalithic Monuments.
N. D'Anvers translation
It is extremely difficult to get at the statistics of menhirs. A great many have been overthrown, and yet more have disappeared altogether. Probably, besides the alignments or stone avenues, there are not more than twenty still standing.13 One thing is certain, the monolithic form of monument has always had a great attraction for the human race, and we meet with it in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Mexico, as well as in England and Brittany. The historian speaks of such monuments in the earliest of existing records; Homer refers to them in the Iliad,14 and in the Bible we find it related that the Lord ordered Joshua to set up twelve stones in memory of the crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites.15