66 Transactions. 



subsequent history possibly lies hidden. The search for it, 

 however, ought to be conducted with great care and circumspection. 

 Unskilful hands might destroy those venerable remains of the 

 past, leaving unsolved the problem they present. 



General Pitt-Rivers has recently communicated to the " Wilt- 

 shire Antiquarian and Natural History Magazine " a most 

 instructive account of the exploration of a camp at South Lodge, 

 Rushmore Park. The earthwork is of squarish form ; the lines 

 of its sides are somewhat irregular, and the ditch was filled up by 

 silting. He began by causing six sections, 10 feet wide each, to 

 be cut across the ditch and rampart in different parts of the 

 camp. In the first three of these nothing worthy of notice was 

 found, showing, as he remarks, " what very false conceptions are 

 liable to be formed by merely digging one or two sections in a 

 camp." He therefore determined to dig the camp all over. The 

 ditch was an average depth of 6.6 feet, and could, from the 

 natui'e of the soil with which it was filled, be divided into two 

 halves, one above and the other below a three feet horizontal line. 

 In the course of turning this soil over the workmen came upon a 

 number of objects of the Bronze Age, most of them in the lower of 

 the two halves, affording sufficient evidence that the camp was of 

 that period. This opinion was further confirmed by the pottery 

 found throughout it. Every fragment got below the three feet 

 line of the ditch was British and pre Roman, while of those dug 

 out above that line nearly a half were of Roman age. Again, of 

 a large number of fragments found in the ramparts, all, with one 

 doubtful exception, were British. In the surface of the interior 

 space the pottery was of both kinds. The conclusion to be drawn 

 from these facts is obvious. Tlie pottery in the rampart must 

 have been deposited there when the camp was formed, and that 

 in the lower half of the ditch during or soon after its first 

 occupation. This pottery taken in connection with the Bronze 

 Age implements clearly proves that the camp had been originally 

 constructed in the Bronze Age. The Romano- British fragments 

 in the upper half of the ditch and in the interior shows that it 

 was afterwards either occupied for a time by the Romans or 

 frequented by Romanized Britons. Care was taken so to carry 

 out the excavations as to leave the camp in a condition that 

 " very much resembles what it was at the time it was in use." 



I have referred at some length to the Rushmore Park 

 excavations to show how much can be accomplished by a careful 



