OF THE BRITISH PERIOD AT WARKSHATJGH. 157 



bottom. The discovery of the central cist was very opportune, 

 as it completed, in all probability, the sepulchral design of this 

 ancient family-barrow, and proved it to be in all respects an 

 excellent typical specimen of its class. 



The following details, drawn from personal observation and 

 measurement, may not be devoid of interest. I regret that the 

 Tyneside Naturalists cannot verify the survey and the sketch 

 now before them by an actual inspection for themselves. The 

 inexorable march of the seasons and the requirements of modern 

 husbandry, as unchangeable when archaeology only is concerned 

 as the laws of the Medes and Persians, demanded that our labours 

 and their recompense should be once more buried from the light 

 of day. It may be that when Lord Mucaulay's New Zealander 

 ponders over 



" The long results of Time," 



on London Bridge, some local antiquary will resuscitate these 

 twice-sepulchred relics of the past, and re-describe them in their 

 less perfect state to such of our successors as feel, with Terence, 

 a human interest in all that affects our race,* or throws a ray of 

 light on its earliest phases and conditions of existence. 



To begin with the characteristics of the Warkshaugh barrow 

 itself — its position and internal arrangements.] The situation is 

 very unusual, low-lying by the brink of a turbulent river, which 

 in flood might be thought to have washed over its site a thousand 

 times since it was originally placed there. Before the river em- 

 bankment was made the overflow must have approached very 

 near to the western face of the tumulus ; though we can scarcely 

 suppose that the builders of it, in times when the rain-fall would 

 be much larger than it is now through the great extent of prim- 

 aeval forests on the flanks of the Cheviot range, would endanger 

 the perpetuity of their monument of tribal or family affection by 

 placing it within reach of even the highest flood. All the " car- 

 neddau" or tumuli of the district, which I have before noticed, 



* " Homo sum ; hnmani nihil a me alienum puto." 



t A rough plan of its situation on the Warkshangh farm is appended, together with a 

 more exact ground-plan of the barrow, wherein the relative position of the cists, flagged- 

 way, and cinerary urn. is defined. 



