Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ix. (191 6), No. 6 5 



In the Craven district of the West Riding, says 

 Canon Greenwell, " there are abundant examples of these 

 peculiar terraces, which, found on the slopes of hill-sides, 

 were at one time supposed to mark ancient levels of water, 

 but which are, notwithstanding, clearly of artificial origin. 

 .... It is not easy to understand why such elaborate 

 works, calling for no slight expenditure of labour, should 

 have been constructed to aid the growth of any crops ; 

 for though in some cases, where they occur upon a steep 

 hill-side, they might be needed to prevent the washing 

 away of the soil when it was broken up, and therefore 

 more subject to the action of water, in other cases they 

 are found upon slopes lying at such an angle as obviously 

 to preclude the necessity of such a provision. Canon 

 Greenwell describes terraces in the East Riding, West- 

 morland, Durham and Northumberland, " Indeed, in the 

 county last named, some of them are found on the pre- 

 cipitous sides of the porphyritic hills on the banks of the 

 river Breamish, at such an elevation as to make it difficult 

 to believe that any cereal crop could ever have grown 

 upon them." 



Miss Semple 7 says, " In Britain of the Bronze Age, 

 before the peoples of Aryan, speech began to swarm over 

 the island, the primitive inhabitants involved in constant 

 clan or tribal warfare, placed their villages on the hills, 

 and left in the indestructible terraces on their slopes the 

 evidences of a vanished race and an outgrown social 

 order." 



The next place where I have definite information 

 about terraces is Spain. Miss Semple says that terraced 

 cultivation was brought in by the Saracens from Arabia, 



,; Op. cit., p. 374 



7 Ellen Churchill Semple, "Influences of Geographic Environment on 

 the Basis of Ratzel's system of Anthropo-Geography," 1911, p. 563. 



