requisite for its completion. It would scarcely he proper in tliis 

 place, even if I were qualified, to attempt a criticism of its con- 

 tents ; but it may, perhaps, be permitted me to remark, that it 

 contains a second of Mr. J. T. Blight's excellent illustrations of 

 our cliff-castles ; and we may hope that, from time to time, he will 

 favour us with like delineations of the many similar structures, 

 which have not yet disappeared before the so called progress of 

 improvement on various parts of our coasts. 



Just twenty years ago * Mr. Pattison favoured us with notices 

 of somewhat similar works at Bedruthan in Saint Eval, Trevarrian 

 in Mawgan, Kelsey in Cubert, and Trevelgu^ in Saint Columb- 

 minor. His accounts, so far as they go, are excellent ; but the 

 last of them, at least, admits of amplification. Hoping that Mr. 

 J. T. Blight might have enriched our pages with further illustra- 

 tions of this spot, I have, until now, refrained from mentioning 

 that in 1864 Mr. Nicholls, of Trevelgu6, discovered, near the base 

 of the second earthwork within " the island," a great quantity of 

 mussel and limpet-shells, and, imbedded in the lower part of the 

 heap, several bones, amongst which Professor Owen had recog- 

 nized some of the Bos longifrons.f This identification vanj possibly 

 give birth to speculation as to the exact period of construction ; 

 and it may not be out of place to mention that our collection dis- 

 plays a bronze fibula, X and the museum at Penzance contains 

 other Roman remains, found in the openings made by workmen 

 of an earlier age, in a bed of stream-tin ore at Treloy, little more 

 than a mile from Trevelgu6. 



It is probably known to us all that Mr. J. T. Blight has been 



* Report of the Royal Institution of Cormcall, xxsi (1849), pp. 36 — 40. 



•f- " During the Eoman occupation the Bos lonrjifrons was the staple meat 

 of the country. When the Koman Empire yielded to the Teutonic invaders, 

 who had heen kept at bay for centuries by its power, and the legions in 

 Britain were recalled for the defence of Italy, the Saxons, in a conflict which 

 lasted for nearly 150 years, drove out the Komanized Kelts, burnt their towns 

 and villas, and compelled them to retreat to Wales, Coi'nwall, and the high- 

 lands of Scotland, taking, as far as they could, their cattle along with them. 



In this ruthless destruction of Koman civilization in Britain lies 



the explanation of the affinities of the small Welsh and Scotch cattle to the 

 Bos longifrons. They are in all probability the lineal descendants of those 



which the Romanized Kelts took with them in their retreat During 



that war of nearly a century and a half, the variety seems to have died out 

 in the parts of the country that were under Saxon rule ; and I have sought 

 in vain for any evidence of its re-appearance from that time to the present." 

 -^Boyd DaAvkins, Quarterly Journal of the Geoloyical Society, xxiii (1867), 



pp. 1m— 4:. 



+ Henwood, Cormcall Gcol. Trans., iv, p. 65. De la Beche, Rejport on 

 the Geulojy of Cornwall, Devon, and West Somerset, p. 405. 



