NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 173 



the artificial caverns knoAvn in this neighbourhood as ^ Fogous,' 

 All trace of it had been buried time out of mind deep beneath the 

 soil of a cultivated field, and all recollection of it would have been 

 lost had not the owner of the farm, Mr. Robert Osborne, fortu- 

 nately broken a ploughshare against one of the shallower covering- 

 stones some thirty years ago. On that occasion the offending stone 

 was removed, and, in removing it, a cavity was observed below, 

 which impressed itself on Mr. Osborne's memory. Recent archaeo- 

 logical activity in the district made him desire that Treveneage 

 should rival, if not excel. Trove, Chapel Uni, and Castallack. So 

 he put four stout horses into a plough and drove his furrows 

 deeper and deeper until another covering stone was struck and the 

 Fogou discovered. It has, thus far, been traced from its com- 

 mencement — unroofed for about 28 feet, and then roofed for six 

 feet more. The excavation at present terminates at one of the 

 little doorways or lintelled openings which are found in every 

 Fogou yet known. On the left-hand side, close by this door, a very 

 small, narrow passage, through which it is as much as a middle- 

 sized man can do to creep, leads into a low, arched chamber, cut 

 out of the country, and which was never either faced or roofed. 

 This chamber was about 15 feet long, 12 broad, circular (or rather 

 elliptic) and perhaps ?>\ to 4 feet high. There is every appearance 

 of the continuation of the Cave beyond the doorway. A spear- 

 head and some pottery, found in the excavations, have been 

 secured. There seems little doubt that the Fogou was either 

 within, or immediately outside, the old British Fort at Treveneage 

 Bekkan, which formerly projected the tin-works and smelting- 

 houses, of which traces exist in the valley below, but which fort 

 some ruthless improver of his estate destroyed long before the 

 present enlightened era. 



The Tortoises at Tregullow. 



A NOTICE of the Land Tortoise breeding at Tregullow, in 

 October, 1862 — probably the first recorded instance of that ani- 

 mal's eggs proving productive in Great Britain — appeared in the 

 45th Annual Report of this Institution (1863) ; and in the follow- 

 ing Report, it was recorded that another specimen — a male — was 



