68 THE CELTIC TUMULI OF DORSET. 



(No. 63) was discovered after eight days' laborious digging, amidst 

 a deposit of charcoal and ashes, a ruby coloured barrel-shaped glass 

 bead which had undergone the action of fire, but there was no 

 other sepulchral interment to reward the patience and labour of the 

 explorers.* In the S. district (Purbeck, Turn. 86) a green glass 

 bead with a skeleton was found by Mr. Austen. 



7. 8. JET AND KIMERIDGE, OR BITUMINOUS SHALE. The former 

 differs from the latter, being specifically a lignite, whilst the latter 

 is of a shaly nature, but both are of bituminous character, derived 

 no doubt from the vegetable properties common to both, and now 

 fossilized. The former is chiefly obtained from the Yorkshire 

 strata ; the latter is found on the Dorset coast, in a characteristic 

 formation from which its appellation is borrowed. Both appear to 

 have afforded from very distant time the material for personal 

 ornament and other uses. Jet is of some rarity in our Tumuli ; 

 Sir R. C. Hoare records the discovery of a female skeleton in the 

 extended position with a few beads of blue glass and jet and a 

 beautiful ornament set in gold, enamelled, and with a chequered 

 pattern (Turn. No. 47, N.) This was regarded by Sir R. Hoare as 

 the grave of a Belgic or Romanized Briton. In Tumuli No. 23, N., 

 he found with skeletons two ornaments of jet perforated for 

 suspension, and another larger of the same material, " resembling a 

 pulley," lying near the thigh bone. (PI. 3, Woodyates). Beads of 

 jet and amber were found together as in Turn. 42, N. Articles of 

 bituminous shale are even more infrequently found in our tumuli 

 than those of jet, which is the more noteworthy, as the material is 

 the better known, especially in Purbeck, where, as is now under- 

 stood, the Roman colonists established their handicraft at an early 

 period of the subjugation of the Durotriges, erected their work- 



* The exploration of this Barrow has been made the subject of an 

 ingenious memoir by the late Rev. C. Woolls, curate of Sturminster 

 Marshall, entitled "The Barrow Diggers, a Dialogue in imitation of The 

 Grave Diggers in Hamlet, with numerous explanatory notes," pp. 112. 

 London, Whittaker and Co., 1839, Shipp, Blandford. The Notes and 

 Plates are good. 



