cairn vs monolith

cairn

noun
  • A pile of stones heaped up as a landmark, to guide travelers on land or at sea, or to arrest attention, as in surveying, or in leaving traces of an exploring party, etc. 

  • A cairn terrier. 

  • A rounded or conical heap of stones erected by early inhabitants of the British Isles, apparently as a sepulchral monument. 

monolith

noun
  • A large, single block of stone which is a natural feature; or a block of stone or other similar material used in architecture and sculpture, especially one carved into a monument in ancient times. 

  • A substrate having many tiny channels that is cast as a single piece, which is used as a stationary phase for chromatography, as a catalytic surface, etc. 

  • A dead tree whose height and size have been reduced by breaking off or cutting its branches. 

  • Anything massive, uniform, and unmovable, especially a towering and impersonal cultural, political, or social organization or structure. 

verb
  • To cast (one or more concrete components) in a single piece with no joints. 

  • To reduce the height and size of (a dead tree) by breaking off or cutting its branches. 

  • To create (something) as, or convert (one or more things) into, a monolith. 

How often have the words cairn and monolith occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )