PREFACE. 
In laying before the public, under the present form, an Account 
of the Inaugural Meeting of the Wilts Archeological and Natural 
History Society, an opportunity is offered of explaining the character . 
of the Publication which the Society now proposes to put forth. 
Tt will be seen in the Rules, that a General Meeting is to be 
held once in every year, at some time and place to be fixed by 
the Committee, for the purpose of receiving an Annual Report, 
transacting business, and reading such Papers as may have been 
prepared for the occasion. These, with the Proceedings of each 
Meeting, will of course appear in print. 
But it has been thought advisable not to confine the Society’s 
efforts to an Annual Report. In the hope of sustaining a more 
lively interest in the objects for which it has been established, it 
is proposed to commence, as a medium of intercourse, a series of 
publications, of which the present is the First, relating to the 
general History and Antiquities of the County of Wilts. To those 
who reside in the more remote parts of it, such a means of commu- 
nication, will be, it is presumed, particularly acceptable. 
In order to place it within the reach of readers of every class, it 
will require to be of a more inexpensive kind than is common in 
Archeological and Topographical works: so that illustrations in 
engraving or lithograph, cannot frequently be introduced, unless 
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