472 Archoeologia. 



extremely curious, and have not been noticed till recently. The 

 wicks are formed of hemp, and they have been made by dipping, but 

 length of time has turned the tallow into a substance which is almost 

 as hard and brittle as marble. It has been asserted that the 

 ancients were not acquainted with the use of candles, and that their 

 only method of giving light was by means of lamps supplied with 

 oil, but these candles of the Roman miners appear to overthrow 

 entirely this theory. And indeed, as we know that the Anglo- 

 Saxons used candles, and from them we derive the modern use of 

 them, and as the Anglo-Saxon condel or candel was undoubtedly 

 derived from the Latin candela, there is every reason for believing 

 that our forefathers derived the use of candles from the Romans as 

 well as the name. 



A large sepulchral tumulus has been opened on Langton "Wold, 

 in the East Riding of Yorkshire, under the direction of the Rev. 

 W. Greenwell of Durham. It is situated hardly more than two- 

 miles from Old Malton, which has every claim to be considered as 

 the Derwentio of the Romans. It is a large tumulus, though 

 low, which is rather a characteristic of the East Yorkshire tumuli, 

 and is not, we think, a characteristic of an early date. The first 

 openings, according to the accounts published, brought to light 

 undoubted Anglo-Saxon interments, with fragments of, as we under- 

 stand, cinerary ware, indicating the mode of interment which 

 appears to have prevailed among the Anglo tribes who settled in 

 this island. In the centre was found a rude chamber, in which a 

 skeleton was found laid on its left side, which is certainly not, as 

 appears to be assumed, a proof of its being an early British inter- 

 ment, for we have ourselves found in East Yorkshire undoubted 

 Anglo-Saxon interments, in which the body was placed in this 

 position, and in some cases doubled up. We are only speaking from 

 a newspaper report, and are, therefore, unwilling to speak too 

 decidedly, but this report does not lead us at all to think with it 

 that the supposed non- Anglo- Saxon interments belong to a very 

 early British period, and that th^re were at least 2000 years- 

 between the dates of the two different interments. It is contrary 

 to the notions which history gives us on such a subject. We have 

 no doubt that the Anglo-Saxons mixed freely enough with the 

 Roman population they found here, and we find sufficient proofs of 

 their burying their dead in the same cemeteries ; but it is not 

 merely improbable that an Anglo-Saxon would open the grave of a 

 people so utterly unknown to him as the prehistoric Britons to 

 bury a kinsman in it. We are inclined to believe, as the result of 

 many researches and investigations, that there was a period between 

 the perfectly Roman and the perfectly Anglo-Saxon to which a 

 large proportion of the tumuli which are commonly called British 

 belong ; but we abstain from further remarks on this case, until the 

 publicaiion of the promised report of these excavations by the 

 gentleman who has directed them. T. W. 



