MATERIALS OF BARROWS. O 



may be said to rang-e from 20 feet to 150 feet in diameter, and from 

 one foot to 24 feet in height \ 



They have been made with the materials which came the readiest 

 to hand ; and these appear to have been collected for some distance 

 round each mound, for no indication of a hollow marks the place 

 from whence the earth or chalk was taken. As might be ex- 

 pected, they are more commonly made of earth than of chalk, 

 but it is rare to find one without some admixture of that stone, or 

 of flint, the former no doubt frequently obtained from the grave, 

 which is almost always found at the centre. They occur but very 

 rarely made entirely of chalk. 



With the imperfect tools and other appliances possessed by 

 the people who erected them, the task of collecting the earth, 

 and much more of quarrj^ing the chalk, must have been by 

 no means an easy one. Chalk however, from its tendency to 

 become broken up, especially in the upper beds by cracks, is 

 easier to work, even by means of so humble an implement as a 

 pick of deer's-horn or a pointed stake, than might at first be 

 supposed. I have frequently noticed indications of turfs or sods of 

 earth having been used ; in a few instances the remains of grass 

 and other plants being distinctly visible. In some of the barrows 

 the appearances were such as to suggest that the material was col- 

 lected in small quantities, probably in baskets ^, and that the mound 

 was constructed piecemeal, here a basketfull of earth, there a few 

 turfs, then a basketfull of chalk, then two or three blocks of flint, 

 and so on '. In some cases the materials have been placed with 

 greater regularity, and the way in which a barrow had gradually 

 increased from the centre was most clearly shown by the parallel 

 layers of different-coloured matter which were distinguishable in 

 the section of it. I have never seen anything to lead to the con- 

 clusion that a material foreign to the spot on which the barrow was 

 erected had been used in its construction, with the exception of 

 slabs of stone, used in making cists, and that has occurred, within 



* Tlie largest that I am acquainted with is Willy Houe, near Wold Xewton, which 

 is very nearly 150 feet in diameter, and about 21 feet high. It was partly opened by 

 the late Lord Londesborougli, but no interment was discovered, nor was the centre 

 reached. 



^ Mr. Peacock noticed the same appearances in a baiTOw at Cleatham, Lincolnshire ; 

 see a paper by him in the Reliquary, vol. viii. p. 224. 



' Is it possible that the custom of friends throwing earth on the coiRn, when the 

 words ' earth to eai-th ' are being read, is a reminiscence or survival of the old manner 

 of raising the barrow, when it may be supposed that those present deposited each his 

 portion of earth, &c. with some degree of observance ? 



