27 



fltam ^ov, ucav dTastldon* 



By I. Chalkley Gould. 



T may be permissible to commence this article by 

 quoting from my paper, read at Buxton in 1899,* 

 with reference to the defensive earthworks of man 

 in the dim ages of the remote past. 

 "It is evident to everyone who has studied these works, that 

 their makers could have been no mere savages, but men with 

 intelligence enough to scheme their fortresses to the greatest 

 advantage. Caesar's words would lead us to suppose that the 

 Britons depended on forests for their defence; but Csesar's 

 visits here in B.C. 55 and 54 were very short in time and range. 

 Let me quote the words of General Pitt-Rivers, in his paper 

 on Mount Caburn, by Lewes, in Sussex : — 



' The skill displnyed in the selection of their sites negatives the supposition 

 that they could have habitually been situate in the midst of woods. We find 

 they are, for the most part, erected on the summits of hills, which, from the 

 nature of the soil, could never have been thickly wooded. The careful manner 

 in which their ramparts are invariably traced, so as to command the slopes, 

 proves that these slopes could never have been covered with wood, otherwise 

 the advantage of the arrangement would have been nullified. 'f 



" Belonging to this early period is that wonderfully-situated 

 earthwork known as ' Mam Tor,' or the ' Shivering Mountain,' 

 near Castleton. No words, that the most fluent of speakers 

 could use, would do more than justice to the beauty of the 

 scene from the commanding height of this great hill, with its 

 prospect into the charming Derbyshire dales, and far over Peak- 

 land. At about 1,700 ft. above the sea level, 1,200 yards of 

 double rampart defended the ridged summit, which nature itself 



* Journal of the British Archicological Associatioji, 190 1, 

 t Archaolo^ia, vol. xlvi. 



