32 THE HILL-FORTRESS CALLED EGGARDUN. 



works remain, but are shrunk in proportion to their antiquity, 

 and their present terminations, on either side, are greatly 

 attenuated.* 



Returning to Eggardun, it has now become clear that the 

 transverse ditch, 15 oft. beyond the camp, was originally cut, and 

 the earth thrown up along its western margin, to isolate the 

 spur. Long afterwards came the camp-builders, who deepened 

 the ditch and threw up earth along its eastern margin for the 

 purpose of strengthening, though doubtfully, their own forti- 

 fication. 



The very ancient and time-worn fosse that Warne speaks of as 

 intersecting, about midway, that portion of the promontory not 

 held by the camp, so far from being midway, is near to the end 

 of the spur. It is indeed the westerly counterpart of the trench 

 just described, and the distance between the two is 440 yards. 

 The pit-circle that Warne mentions as close at hand may 

 have been sunk in later times to protect the warden of beacon 

 fires. f 



* My colleague has reminded me of the geological dictum that chalk downs, 

 covered with turf, are denuded with " colossal slowness." At the foot of such 

 hills gush forth swift and copious streams of water highly charged with lime. 

 As the rain sinks to the springs through the chalk, the latter is perennially 

 dissolved and carried away. The great downs are undergoing an interstitial 

 shrinkage, invisible but perpetual. 



It may be noted, for what it is worth, that the last surveyors of Dorset assign 

 a much less altitude to the hills than was obtained by the first survey, which 

 perhaps was inaccurate. 



In 1886, on the edge of a declivity near Portesham, was discovered the outer 

 end of a stone cist which penetrated the slope. This grave, which contained 

 human bones, was about six feet long. In 1896 not a trace of the interment was 

 left. It is reasonable to assume that when the sepulchre was constructed the 

 earth about it was level, and was not then the steep edge of a combe ; but the 

 fact remains that within a period of ten years several feet of a grass -covered 

 slope had disappeared without revealing to the eye any sign of denudation. 



H. C. M. 



t The outer edge of the raised rim is, on the sea-ward side, too sharp to be 

 ancient. 



