142 THE MOUND BUILDERS. 



digging into the green mound, it is found to cover a series of 

 large chambers, built generally with stones of considerable 

 size, and converging towards the centre, where an opening 

 appears to have been left for light and ventilation. These 

 differ little from many of the subterranean weems, excepting 

 that they are erected on the natural surface of the soil, and 

 have been buried by means of an artificial mound heaped over 

 them."* 



According to Mr. Bateman, who has recorded the syste- 

 matic opening of more than four hundred tumuli (a very 

 large proportion of which were investigated in his presence), 

 and whose opinion is, therefore, of great value, " the funda- 

 mental design of them (i.e. the British tumuli), with the 

 exception of the very few chambered or galleried mounds in 

 Berkshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Ireland, etc., as New 

 Grange, Wayland Smith's Cave, Uleybury, and others, and 

 those of the much later Saxon period, is pretty nearly the 

 same in most places ; the leading feature of these sepulchral 

 mounds is, that they enclose either an artless stone vault, or 

 chamber, or a stone chest, otherwise called a Kistvaen, built 

 with more or less care ; and, in other cases, a grave cut out 

 more or less below the natural surface, and lined, if need be, 

 with stone slabs, in which the body was placed in a perfect 

 state, or reduced to ashes by fire."-f- 



The "long" tumuli of Great Britain resemble, in some 

 respects, the Scandinavian " Ganggraben," and, like them, in 

 districts where large blocks of stones occur, contain mega- 

 lithic chambers, in which the dead were buried and not 

 burnt. No trace of metal has yet been found in this class 

 of tumulus ; which therefore probably belongs to the Stone 

 Age. The skulls found in these tumuli are very long and 



* Wilson, I.e. vol. i. p. 161. 



t Bateinan, Ten Years' Diggings, p. xi. 



