
a Excavations at Avebury. 215 
the surface, were of comparatively recent date: glass and pottery 
too, near the surface, told their tale of modern times; but 
the fragments of pottery which we brought to light from 
our deeper cuttings were invariably of the British type. Thus 
we flatter ourselves that our exertions have not been thrown 
away: we trust we have once for all disposed of the novel theory 
as to the great charnel house of the ancient Britons; while on the 
other hand we have unmistakeably proved the sites of several of 
the most important stones long since broken up, and carried away : 
and we have probed the great surrounding embankment to its very 
core, laying bare the original surface, and closely examining all 
the materials of which it is composed. 
We also found three stones not mentioned by recent writers. 
Ten yards to the east of the standing stone, nearest on the left 
hand side of the south entrance to Avebury, is a stone, which is 
not laid down in Hoare’s map. The dry summer of 1864, and the 
heat of some part of 1865, had killed the turf over the stone, and 
it now shows above the surface. Twenty yards in anorth westerly 
direction from the next standing stone, (“‘ m” in the map) another 
stone may be found under the turf, and ten yards again from this 
is yet another. 
It is most probable that others may in a similar manner, lie con- 
cealed beneath the turf in other parts of the temple. They should 
be sought for, and laid down on the map. 
It is a somewhat curious coincidence that scarcely had our 
explorations at Avebury been brought to a close, and before it had 
been possible to prepare any record of them, a brisk correspondence 
took place in the pages of the Atheneum (though it did not meet 
_my eye at the time), between Mr. Fergusson and Sir John Lubbock, 
Professor Tyndal and others, on the object of Avebury and on the 
Roman road and its connection with Silbury, wherein Mr. 
Fergusson in his first letter dated December 23rd, 1865, repeats 
his opinion “that Avebury was a burial place, and that Silbury 
Hill was situated on the Roman road, and was therefore post 
Roman;” and he continnes, “one great object I have in view is 
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