W Mr. E. Lovett's Eeport on the 



are probably purely accidental. In some instances of mound 

 burial the bodies have been placed in positions radiating from a 

 common centre, and in those remarkable buildings for the dead, 

 the Parsee Towers of Silence, the cavities for the reception of the 

 bodies are arranged in a similar manner. These towers of silence 

 are perhaps one of the most uncommon methods of disposing of 

 the dead, which as soon as deposited are stripped of the flesh by 

 vultures, whilst the bones are thrown into the central well, in 

 which the remains of many generations of departed Parsees find 

 a common resting place. 



We may now consider the mounds or barrows of our own 

 country, leaving out altogether those of other countries, in almost 

 all of which they abound in plenty. 



.The. barrows of Yorkshire and Wiltshire have perhaps been 

 explored better than those of other places, the former by Canon 

 Greenwell, and the latter by Sir Eichard Colt Hoare. It would 

 be to the Wiltshire series that our Arundel barrow would belong. 

 The chief form is circular ; the long barrow being very scarce, 

 and supposed to belong piu'ely to the stone age. They vary very 

 much in size, from mere undulations of the ground caused by 

 denudation or partial removal, to hills of which Silbury Hill in 

 Wiltshire is a good example, covering five acres of ground, and 

 being 130 ft. in height. 



The variety of objects found in barrows in this country is very 

 great, and includes, besides the human remains, food-pans and 

 drinking-cups of earthenware, weapons of flint and bronze, orna- 

 ments and remains of clothing and fragments of the bones of 

 animals, large nodules of flint, potsherds, &c. The bodies them- 

 selves were either inhumed, cremated, or partially cremated. In 

 the cases of cremation the ashes were usually placed in an urn 

 under the mound ; in those of inhumation or partial cremation 

 they were sometimes merely covered with earth, at others 

 covered with flints and chalk first and earth on that ; in others 

 again a stone cist or coffin was constructed, and in one or two 

 instances a split hollow tree has contained the body. The 

 almost general presence of bones and broken pottery in the 

 mounds is due to the fact that it was the custom to have a 

 funeral feast at the time of burial or interment, and the drinking 

 and other vessels were afterwards broken up and thrown on to 

 the accumulating mound. 



In the light of these briefly referred to descriptions of burials 

 and barrows, we will now turn to that opened by our friends last 

 month on the South Downs. 



The first barrow inspected was situated about four miles to the 

 east of Arundel, and nearly upon the ridge of the chalk downs, 

 which in this part are covered with short grass. Its exact posi- 

 tion was a few hundred yard? down the northern slope, and not 



