260 THE MENDTI'S : A aEOLOGTCAL E,EVERIE. 



pass away, to be after many (lays replaced by Neolithic 

 folk. 



Within night of the Mondips, at Stanton Drew, there 

 stands to this day, formed of huge brocciated blocks, some 

 of them carried thithor from Mendip, a system of stone 

 circles erected, as I believe, by these Neolithic folk. 

 England had, in their day, become insular, and the glacial 

 epoch was a thhig of the past. Unlike the Palaeoliths, who 

 were acquainted with many animals unfamiliar to us, and 

 some of them extinct, the Neolith knew only one extinct 

 animal, the groat Irish deer, noblest-antlered of his kind. 

 In their hunting expeditions the dog was at their side. 

 They ground and polished their implements, and mined for 

 the flints of which they were fashioned. Above all thoy 

 were herdsmen and farmers, who introduced many of our 

 cerials and domestic cattle. 



These were perhaps the pre- Aryan inhabitants of Britain. 

 They were in course of time invaded by Aryan folk who 

 brought with them the use of bronze, and all the varied 

 culture of the axe ; who buried their chieftains in the round 

 barrows which still dot the Mendip uplands, and who, in 

 later days, had, in turn, to give way before the Eomans, the 

 scars of whose mining operations still seam the sides of 

 Mendip. 



The sun was sinking and the air was growing chill, as I 

 grasped again my geological hammer, and swiftly descended 

 from the Mendip upland. 



