246 The Thirty-Seventh Annual Moeting. 
here—and explained how they were in all probability, formed by 
the rains rushing down from off the tertiary clays and sands which 
once covered the chalk downs, the rainfall in those days being much 
greater probably than it is now. 
Entering the carriages again the party was driven to Blackland 
Hollow, where most of the Members alighted and walked along the 
course of the Wansdyke to the cutting made by General Pitt- Rivers 
the year before, above Shepherd’s Shore. The sides of this cutting 
were found to be still sharp and clear, and Taz Generat explained 
the results he had obtained from it. An iron nail, an iron knife- 
blade, and a few pieces of pottery were the chief things found. 
The purpose of the excavation was to find some object on, or under, 
the original turf-line of the down, upon which the mound had been 
thrown up. Whatever was found at this depth below the mound— 
and the original line of the turf was clearly shown by a band of 
brown mould—must, of course, have been there before the mound 
was thrown up, and if any bits of pottery could be discovered to 
which a date could be assigned, that would go far towards settling 
the date of the dyke itself. Grnzrau Pirt-Rivers said that the 
presence of fragments of Samian ware under the outer and smaller 
rampart proved pretty conclusively that that, at least, was of Roman 
or post-Roman date; but as to the main rampart the evidence as 
yet was insufficient to warrant a conclusion. He gave it as his 
opinion that these dykes, being lines of defence, only protected the 
open and exposed parts of the country, the low-lying grounds having 
been then covered with dense forest, which would probably sufficiently 
protect the inbabitants from any enemy. In support of this theory 
he mentioned that both Bokerley and Wansdyke lose themselves at 
each end in what must have been thick forest country, where, if it 
was necessary to continue the line of defence at all, the place of the 
dyke might easily have been taken by abattis of felled trees. 
Probably the object of these defensive lines—as that of the Roman 
wall certainly was—was to defend the country of some tribe or 
nation in a more advanced state of civilisation from the attacks of 
its more barbarous neighbours ; more especially to prevent the cattle 
—which probably constituted the wealth of those days—being 
