EARTIIWOKKS NEAR BRUTON. 57 



it to be, and this System of excavation carried on as it pro- 

 bably was for tbe greater part of a thousand years, it ap- 

 pears to me that tbe peculiar appearance and State of the 

 ground at Pen Pits may be accounted for witb at least a 

 semblance of probability. If it be urged that tbe stone is 

 unfit for grinding com, the teeth found in ancient British 

 skulls afford an answer ; the crowns, even in middle aged 

 subjects being worn quite snaooth, no doubt by the great 

 quantity of sand mixed with the meal, ground with stone 

 of too soft a texture. 



CADBURY CASTLE. 



Of Cadbury Castle, the second remarkable earthwork 

 to which I wish at present to draw your attention, Camden 

 gives the following account. " The River Ivell rises in 

 Dorsetshire, and receives a little river, upon which is 

 Camalet, a steep mountain of very difficult ascent, on the 

 top of which are the piain footsteps of a decayed camp, and 

 a triple rampart of earth cast up, including 20 acres (the 

 ground plan says 60 acres and 32 perches). The inhabitants 

 call it Arthur's Palace, but that it was really a work of the 

 Romans is piain, froni Roman coins daily dug up there. 

 What they might call it I am altogether ignorant, unless it 

 be that Caer Calemion, in Nennius's catalogue, by a trans- 

 position of letters from Camelion. Cadbury, the adjoin- 

 ing little village, may, by a conjecture probable enough, 

 be thought, that Cathbregion, where Arthur, as Nennius 

 hath it, routed the Saxons in a memorable engagement." 

 And in the additions to Camden published with Gibson's 

 edition, I find the following description : " Leaving the sea 

 coast, our next direction is the river Ivell, near which is 

 Camalet, mcntioned by Mr. Camden, as a place of great 

 antiquity. The hill is a mile in compass ; at the top four 



tol. vii., L856-7, i'akt ii. g* 



