368 RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. 



vitrescency induced by the others beside it. There is no other 

 mode of accounting for the continuity of the fusion ; and how 

 could definite meanings possibly be attached to the various 

 parts of a line so minutely graduated, that the centre of the 

 fire kindled on any one graduation could be scarce ten feet 

 apart from the centre of the fire kindled on any of its two 

 neighbouring graduations 1 Even by day, the exact compart- 

 ment which a fire occupied could not be distinguished, at the 

 distance of half a mile, from its neighbouring compartments, 

 and not at all by night, at any distance, from even the com- 

 partments farthest removed from it. Who, for instance, at 

 the distance of a dozen miles or so, could tell whether the 

 flame that shone out in the darkness, when all other objects 

 around it were invisible, was kindled on the east or west end 

 of an eminence little more than a hundred yards in length ? 

 Nay, who could determine, for such is the requirement of 

 the hypothesis, whether it rose from a compartment of the 

 summit a hundred feet distant from its west or east end, or 

 from a compartment merely ninety or a hundred and ten feet 

 distant from it ? The supposed signal system, added to the 

 mere beacon hypothesis, is palpably untenable. 



The theory of Williams, however, which is, I am inclined 

 to think, the true one in the main, seems capable of being 

 considerably modified and improved by the hypothesis of Sir 

 George. The hill-fort, palpably the most primitive form 

 of fortalice or stronghold originated in a mountainous coun- 

 try, seems to constitute man's first essay towards neutral- 

 izing, by the art of fortification, the advantages of superior 

 force on the side of an assailing enemy. It was found, on 

 the discovery of New Zealand, that the savage inhabitants 

 had already learned to erect exactly such hill-forts amid the 

 fastnesses of that country as those which were erected two 

 thousand years earlier by the Scottish aborigines amid the 

 fastnesses of our own. Nothing seems more probable, there- 



