Ill TO SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES 49 



diately to the east. The fourth group, where the per- 

 centage is only 2 per cent, to 1 per cent., consists of 

 Gloucester Derbyshire 



Hereford Nottingham 



Shropshire East Lincolnshire 



Staffordshire West Norfolk 



most of Essex, 



and forms a kind of crescent moon round the earlier- 

 mentioned groups, broken only by Herts, and part of 

 Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. Out- 

 side that again there lies the fifth group, composed 

 of Yorkshire and Cheshire in the north and Hampshire 

 and part of Somerset in the south, where the percentage 

 falls below one per cent. Finally, we come to counties 

 of the sixth and seventh groups, where there is no mention 

 of enclosure at all, except of one in Wilts. 



At first sight we are tempted to compare the disturbance 

 caused by these enclosures to that caused by a stone thrown 

 into the water. It is violent at the point of original 

 imp; and becomes less so as the wave circles spread, 

 until 1 tiiey final! i; e away, either because of some obstacle 

 on the surface ie water or because the original source 



of energy has ^.hausted itself. And yet this parallel, 

 though it may be'a useful aid to memory is really a very 

 misleading one, 'ihasmuch as it suggests a movement in 

 many ways the exact opposite of that which really occurred. 

 This, instead of being one from the centre to the circum- 

 ference, was rather one from the circumference on the 

 centre, or, to be more correct, one originating in the south, 

 south-west and east, thence moving as a half crescent, 

 much as the moon waxes, and then, when the ball was 

 completed, rolling forward to the north. 



This way of looking at the matter will naturally draw 

 our attention to those counties of the sixth group. These, it 



