114 PAPERS, ETC. 
works and lines of road entitle him to the greatest respect. 
This idea is stated by Mr. Phelps to have been confirmed 
before his death in a very satisfactory manner. On making 
a communication between two parts of the Down on St. 
Anne’s Hill, the vallum of Wansdyke was cut in two, 
where the stratum of soil evidently displayed the height of 
the original dyke, and its subsequent elevation. Yet al- 
though this conjeeture is plausible, and the fact in this 
particular instance confirms the idea, yet before we can 
adopt the theory, much more investigation would be re- 
quired at various points ; for Wansdyke may have been 
repaired and heightened at this particular point for reasons 
then existing ; and the same people who formed this 
boundary-line, may at a later period have found it neces- 
sary to make it more accurately defined. 
It may not be amiss to mention that there exist ın this 
kingdom several other instances of boundary-lines, the 
history of one of which we are acquainted with—:. e., 
Offa’s Dyke, which runs through the counties of Salop, 
Hereford, Montgomery, Denbigh, and Flint, and which is 
accompanied by another of earlier construction, namely, 
Watt’s Dyke, which is carried through the counties of 
Salop, Denbigh, and Flint. These two great ditches run 
side by side for twenty miles. In some places they are within 
a few hundred yards of each other ; in others they lie 
asunder, without any apparent reason, for three miles. 
Watt’s Dyke is much inferior to Offa’s. These dykes 
were intended as a boundary-line between the dominions 
of Offa, King of Mercia, and the Welsh. Having expelled 
the Welsh from the open country they possessed between 
the Severn and the Wye, and annexed the eastern parts of 
Wales as far as the former river to the kingdom of Mercia, 
Ofta proceeded to separate the Britons from his subjeets 
