70 PAPERS, ETC. 
its construction, I cannot help thinking that the camp on 
Worle Hill may be of the same very remote antiquity. 
Now it is said that Hamilco was sent by the Senate of 
Carthage to discover the western shores and ports of 
Europe, as early as 420 2.c.; and that the Islands of 
Britain are mentioned by the name of ZEstryminides 
Islands, infested by the ZEstrum or Gadfly; but Davis 
states that the same word, Cler, (which in British signi- 
fies Gadfly), also means a learned man or teacher; and 
that Hamilco probably discovered, not the islands of 
the Gadfly, but ofthe Druids. The expeditions of the 
Carthaginians to the western shores of this island were 
undoubtedly undertaken for the purpose of obtaining tin 
and other minerals; and it is certain that the mines of 
Mendip were worked by the Belg® before the Roman 
invasion, and probably before them by the Hedui, or other 
aboriginal tribes. May it not then be at least possible 
that the fortifications on Worle Hill may mark the site of 
a town inhabited in times of extreme antiquity by persons 
connected with this traffic, and that from them the primi- 
tive Britons may have looked down upon Carthaginian or 
even Phoenician ships taking in their cargoes of the 
mineral wealth of Mendip, hundreds of years before the 
Belgic settlement at Bleadon or the port of Axium were in 
existence ? 
That Worle Hill was occupied by something more than 
a military station, appears probable when we come to 
examine the remains actually existing upon it, which will 
I hope, be a more satisfactory employment than guessing 
at their date and origin. Of this very remarkable forti- 
fication Mr. Rutter, in his delineations of Somersetshire, 
gives the following account: “ Worle Hill is an insulated 
ridge, about three miles long, but not more than a furlong 
