180 - Silbury. 



whence to keep watch, to guard against surprize, and to signal to 

 similar eminences, which the nature of the surrounding hills en- 

 tirely forbids us to suppose : or as a place of assembly for judicial 

 and legislative purposes,^ for which we have no authority whatever ; 

 though I am quite aware that these large tumuli having been found 

 convenient, were sometimes made use of in this way : but I have 

 yet to learn that we have any direct evidence of their being erected 

 for such objects, against which the labour and necessary expense 

 would strongly militate, when any natural eminence would answer 

 the purpose equally well. And surely, however inconclusive and 

 unsatisfactory arguments from analogy may be, I submit that they 

 are not without their force, especially if considered in connexion 

 with other arguments such as I have used above : therefore I take 

 leave to regard Silbury as nothing else than a sepulchral tumulus 

 of colossal dimensions, in short a gigantic barrow, and containing 

 the bones or ashes of some renowned Briton, but whether the tomb 

 of the illustrious founder of Avebury ^ (as Stukeley asserts), or the 



as one of these beacons, where in former times fires were lighted to alarm the 



neighbourhood on the approach of an enemy : 



' And flaming beacons cast their beams afar, 

 The dreadful si^al of invasive war.' 



Its elevated situation over the great forest of Selwood, commanding a distant 

 view of the Severn, was well adapted to such a purpose, aud might have been 

 so used, but I always had considered its original destination to have been sepul- 

 chral, and 80, on opening, it proved to be," i., 39. 



' The famous Tynwald, or Judicial Hill, in the Isle of JIan, celebrated as the 

 place whence the laws of the island have been promulgated from an unknown 

 period of antiquity, and where the kings were crowned, is no exception to this, 

 as in the first place its primary object aud date are unknown, and again its 

 form and comparatively small size suggest no comparison with our own Silbury ; 

 for it is described as a round hill of earth, 300 feet in circumference, cut into 

 terraces, and ascended by steps of earth, like a staircase. [" Train's History of 

 the Isle of Man," "Lost Solar System of the Ancients discovered " ii., 20. 

 Mr. Long's " Abury " illustrated, in Wilts Magazine, iv., 340.] 



* Stukeley records the custom of the country people meeting on the top of 

 Silbury every Palm Sunday, when they make merry with cakes, figs, sugar, 

 and water fetched from the Swallow-head, or spring of the Kennet near the 

 foot of the mound (Abury, p. 44) ; and Sir R. C. Hoare remarks that the habit 

 of ascending to the summits of hills on Palm Sunday is not confined to Silbury, 

 for it prevails on another conspicuous eminence, in South Wilts, viz. Clea HiU, 



