It must often have been remarked by those who are in the habit of reading treatises (great or small) on antiquities, that their authors, while sufficiently able to describe the objects they have seen, are, from the narrow field of their observation (it may have been a parish or a county), but ill furnished with a basis on which to found rational theories, and yet that the men who are in possession of the fewest facts are those who indulge in the greatest amount of theory.
In introducing these Notes of a visit to the Island of Sardinia, it is necessary to premise that my object in visiting that beautiful country was simply to do what the class of antiquaries above mentioned has not done — that is, over a wide range of observation, to examine carefully, and to measure and delineate some of those antiquarian puzzles, the Nuraghi. This I had previously done to many of the vast antiquities in Brittany; and being already familiar with the pre-historic structures of Scotland, I hoped to be in a position to better understand that class, both there and elsewhere, and to institute comparison where similarities exist