president's addeess. 247 



through a belt of fir-trees, many of which had grown to a con- 

 siderable size, standing within the circular hollows, twelve to 

 fifteen feet in diameter, the bases of the ancient British pit- 

 dwellings. This Brigantian, or, more correctly, pre-historic 

 village, is described by Professor Phillips* and others, and en- 

 circles the terraced brow of the lofty peak at a great height, a 

 little beloAv the cap of Oolitic sandstone that rests on the Lias. 

 As the presence of water near at hand has usually determined 

 the site of such primitive, pre-Roman settlements, there was 

 pointed out, on the opposite side by which we descended, a spring 

 of water, called, by tradition, Oswy's Well. It must have 

 flowed more abundantly in ancient times, if the legend be true 

 that tells of the little prince being drowned therein, in his play, 

 when his nurse's eyes were closed in sleep — thus accidentally 

 fulfilling the prophetic intimation of his early death. Pew 

 etymons are so exactly descriptive as this of Boseberry, which 

 takes us back to the first Aryan migration into Britain, the Gad- 

 hclic or earlier Celtic occupation. No one who has passed along the 

 narrow neck of rock that unites the shattered and weather-worn 

 peak to the main mass of the mountain, like a miniature Striden 

 Edge, and has then stood upon the giddy head-land, 1022 feet 

 above the sea, can fail to notice the extreme appropriateness of 

 the name, when he remembers that it is derived from the Gaelic 

 or Earlier Celtic ros, a prominent rock or projecting head-land. 

 (The same name is found in the village of " Boss," on the pro- 

 jecting point opposite Holy Island.) The "berry" simply refers 

 to the Saxon "bury," and is often so spelt, the equivalent of 

 the Celtic "dun," the hill-fort, that is, the primitive village of 

 British days then lying beneath us. "Topping" is the Norse 

 "Toppen," an apex or point, descriptive, like ros, of the peaked 

 summit, which must have been a note-worthy landmark to the 

 Danish invaders of Cleveland also, who have left other name- 

 traces in its "Forces," "Becks," and "Dales." From this 

 eagle's eyrie, we looked down beneath the overhanging gritstone- 

 capping that crowns the hill, and saw the Upper Lias-shale forming 

 a kind of concave slope below us, with the primeval pit-dwellings 



* "Yorkshire," '2nd Edition, p. 208, etc 



