Hecent Explorations at Silbury Hill. 
By AuFrep C. Pass. 
ILBURY HILL has been described so accurately by the 
Gi Rev. A. C. Smith, in the “ Wiltshire Magazine” for 1861, 
and has been so frequently referred to in this Magazine, that a 
detailed description of the hill itself would be superfluous. But 
“before describing my recent excavations I will refresh the memories 
of readers by remarking that it is stated to be the greatest artificial 
mound in Europe, covering about five acres of ground, it is 125ft. 
high, and is level on the summit, where it measures 1038ft. diameter. 
It is composed chiefly of chalk rubble, which was obtained by 
excavating the solid chalk rock from the land surrounding the base 
of the mound. 
In the belief that this great mound had been raised as a sepulchral 
tumulus, it has been twice excavated and explored. In the year 
1777 the Duke of Northumberland brought miners from Cornwall, 
and sunk a shaft from the summit to the base of the hill. In 1849 
the Archeological Institute caused a tunnel to be made from the 
south side to the centre of the hill, when the original nucleus or 
central point was found, but no trace of sepulture was discovered, 
A few fragments of deer’s horns and some pieces of twisted grass 
only rewarded their search. The deer’s horns were, perhaps, the 
broken tools used in excavating the chalk rock, of which the hill is 
chiefly composed, and the twisted grass may have been remains of 
the baskets in which the chalk was carried on the heads of the 
builders. From the results of this examination, it may be inferred 
that the mound is not sepulchral. If it had been, then, surely, in 
the central point from which the hill was started, one would expect 
to find some remains of the great dead in whose honour it was 
erected. 
In describing the tunnel of 1849 the Dean of Hereford, in his 
“Diary of a Dean,” says :—“ Nothing could be more evident than the 
VOL. XXIII—NO. LXIX. s 
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