By the Rev. Canon J. LE. Jackson, V.8.A. 271 
brought to light many portions of this stone, shaped into querns, 
but left on the spot as if they had been found to be of inferior 
quality and unsuitable to the purpose required. Many persons, 
therefore, have accepted as an explanation of the pits that they 
were simply excavations for getting grindstone. But a great and 
almost insurmountable objection to this is that no people in their 
senses would ever have worked a bed of stone in such a way. To 
dig hundreds—it is said there have been thousands—of fresh holes 
one after another, instead of working on continuously, as all stone 
quarries are worked, would be a mode of operation unheard of. It 
seems impossible to accept this explanation. 
Then, were the pits human habitations? We read of people in 
underground dwellings not only in old times but even now. The 
Greek poet Aischylus, in the play called ‘‘ Prometheus,” puts into 
the mouth of his hero these words :—“ Before my time men knew 
nothing about houses built of brick, or carpenters’ work ; but they 
dwelt in excavations in the earth, like tiny emmets in the sunless 
depths of caverns.” In Kamschatka and the Arctic regions these 
huts are dug underground for warmth. I read the other day of a 
specimen in California of a round hole dug in the ground ; poles and 
slices of bark formed a conical roof supported by other upriyht poles; 
and there are in England, indeed in Wilts, on the downs, groups of 
such holes, supposed tv have served the same purpose. But the 
question is, were these Pen pits made and used for permanent occu- 
pation, so as to form (as from their great number they must have 
done) a very large and populous British settlement? From the 
present appearance of the place this sounds at first incredible. But 
that it really was the case is the opinion of Mr. Thomas Kerslake, 
of Bristol, who has maintained it by very able and ingenious 
arguments, set forth in pamphlets which he has published upon the 
subject. 
The matter was taken up by the Archeological Society of Somer- 
setshire: an examination of the ground was made by a committee, 
but funds being wanting to carry it on to any great extent the 
result was not decisive. Another examination on a larger scale was 
then made under the direction of General Pitt Rivers, whose duties 
