30 



mines, and most fertile parts of the country, and to protect the 

 two great lines of communication from Lancashire to the eastern 

 coast, and from north to south, the Britons appear to have 

 retreated to the high ground on the east side of the county, 

 where we trace their presence hy the harrows, camps, and 

 other remains of the districts about Whitby, Scarborough, 

 and Malton. 



After having stated the general evidence to be deduced from 

 the permanent British and Roman remains, such as camps, roads, 

 entrenchments, barrows, architectural remains, I took a brief sur- 

 vey of such other antiquities of the same early period as I had 

 ascertained to have been from time to time discovered in York- 

 shire, such as weapons, ornaments, coins, pottery, &c. 



Of such objects there has not yet been collected together in 

 one place a number sufficient to enable us to form extensive 

 generalizations ; but we may see in the Roman antiquities, evi- 

 dence rather of a military settlement than of a highly civilized 

 province, such as we may suppose Gaul and Spain to have been ; 

 while in the British remains may be traced that transition from 

 an age of stone to an age of bronze, from an age antecedent to 

 Roman civilization to an age subsequent to it, which is much 

 more strongly marked where the evidence is more abundant and 

 admits of more complete classification. 



Such were the general and obvious inductions from the evi- 

 dence I had got together. Much remained for more systematic 

 research carried on with more leisure. 



I pointed out that many lines of Roman roads had never been 

 duly investigated ; that the Roman towns in Antoninus, Ptolemy, 

 and the Notitia were not all satisfactorily identified, notwith- 

 standing the labours and acumen of successive topographers; that 

 there existed in difierent parts of the county vast anomalous 

 earthworks, such as those at Stanwick, at Kirklington, on 

 Seamer Moor near Scarborough, on Settrington "Wold, near 

 Millington, and those at Wincobank, Mexborough, and other 

 places in the southern part of the county, entrenchments of which 

 the purpose is unknown, and which we cannot assign with cer- 

 tainty to any definite race or period ; that in the immediate 



