THE ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER I. 



,T is reasonable to suppose that in remote ages 

 this woody and mountainous district was in- 

 habited only by bears and wolves. Whether 

 the Britons ever thought it worthy their 

 attention, is not in our power to determine : l 

 but we may safely conclude, from circumstances, that it was 

 not unknown to the Romans. Old people remember to 

 have heard their fathers and grandfathers say that, in dry 

 summers and in windy weather, pieces of money were some- 

 times found round the verge of Wolmer Pond ; and tradition 

 had inspired the foresters with a notion that the bottom of 

 that lake contained great stores of treasure. During the 

 spring and summer of 1740 there was little rain; and the 

 following summer also, 1741, was so uncommonly dry, that 

 many springs and ponds failed, and this lake in particular, 

 whose bed became as dusty as the surrounding heaths and 

 wastes. This favourable juncture induced some of the 

 forest cottagers to begin a search, which was attended with 

 such success, that all the labourers in the neighbourhood 

 flocked to the spot, and with spades and hoes turned up 



1 Several ancient " barrows " in Wolmer Forest, which have been 

 opened from time to time, have been found to contain fragments of 

 human bones and pottery, and in at least one instance an urn of 

 unburnt clay containing fragments of bones, tending to prove that the 

 barrows in question were of British origin in Roman times. ED. 



