336 president's address. 



and must frequently be dry, had possibly been carried there — 

 perhaps by some bird. 



Addleborough was reached about mid-day. The top of this 

 hill is a bed of limestone of considerable thickness, which forms 

 craggy escarpments of some forty or fifty feet in height for a 

 great part of its circuit (extending from its north-east side round 

 the north and west to the south-west side). The eastern side, 

 up which the party ascended, is steep but not craggy. The 

 least steep part of the hill is that toward the south and south- 

 east. There is a hollow depression in the central part of the 

 top of the hill, so that when sitting there the rest of the country 

 was completely concealed from our view, the horizon all round 

 being the verge of the hill itself within a few hundred feet of us. 

 This gave the idea of perfect solitude, which was rather en- 

 hanced than otherwise by the mournful cry of a pair of Golden 

 Plovers, which inhabited the top and doubtless had their young 

 near to us. On this dish-shaped height are the traces of old 

 dwellings and habitations, which are now almost level with the 

 ground, and are covered by the turf. Owing to the abundance 

 of limestone many of the hills and elevated slopes are covered 

 with fine grass, and the top of Addleborough was no exception, 

 the very summit forming good grazing ground for cattle. At 

 the base of the hill, on its south and south-east sides, which, 

 as I have said, are the least steep, are a number of stone en- 

 closures, of irregular form, but rudely approaching the circular. 

 They are marked on the Ordnance Map as "Ancient Enclosures," 

 and doubtless they are very ancient — probably ancient British or 

 pre-Roman. These were examined, and some newly-cut drains 

 in their vicinity were looked into with the hope of finding some 

 implement of stone or bronze which might have been thrown 

 out, but nothing of the kind was found. The position of these 

 ancient enclosures is remarkable. They were at the base of 

 Addleborough, on its most accessible side. From their strength 

 and size they had been doubtless built for defence. They were 

 too large for dwellings and too small for fields, and their stones 

 were of very large size. But if built for defence of themselves 

 only, and without relation to anything outside of them, they 



