Archceologia, 75 



pletely filled with clay and stones. This had been only imperfectly 

 cleared out at the time when Mr. Blight made his report. At the 

 beginning of the recent excavations, a part of some iron instrument, 

 with a socket, was found about midway in the length of the great 

 passage ; and several other pieces of iron — some, it appears, with 

 wood adhering to them, were found in different parts of the cave. 

 Several pieces of worked bone were found, and two or three varieties 

 of pottery, one of which had been an elegantly-shaped vessel of a 

 very fine ware, glazed or enamelled within and without, and with a 

 kind of zigzag ornamentation. This is pronounced by Mr. Blight 

 to be undoubtedly Roman. At the bottom of the passage, for a 

 length of twenty-six feet, the space now uncovered was found to 

 contain a mass of burnt stones and other matter, with great quan- 

 tities of charcoal, small pieces of bone, and fragments of pottery. 

 This black layer was from eight inches to a foot in depth ; and in 

 the midst, adjoining the north wall, a curved bone, fifteen inches in 

 length, and one and a half inches thick, was found, laying close 

 behind a broader piece, six and a quarter inches long, which rested 

 on pottery. There were within a radius of a few inches other pieces 

 of pottery, but not enough to form a complete vessel, with charcoal, 

 a lump of corroded iron, four inches long, and a portion of a large 

 flint pebble. In this passage, also, was found a wrought stone, 

 four inches square by three thick, resembling in form a modern 

 building brick ; and other stones, which seemed to have been used for 

 sharpening tools, or for grinding, with a rude stone celt or hatchet. 

 The floor of the elliptical chamber was also strewn with charcoal — 

 some pieces so entire as to show the original size of the wood. 



The mixture in this "cave" of objects apparently Roman with 

 others of a ruder character, may perhaps indicate only that it was 

 occupied in the Roman period by people who belonged to the older 

 native population, of whatever race, and who were perhaps employed 

 in the mining operations formerly carried on in this district. The 

 presence of so much burnt materials may perhaps be partly ex- 

 plained by the circumstance, that the field in which the cave is 

 found, which occupies high ground midway in the isthmus stretch- 

 ing from Hayle to Marazion, and commanding nearly the whole of 

 the valley, with Tregoning, Castle- an-Diri as, and other hill-castles 

 in view, is called the Beacon. Mr. Blight deserves great praise for 

 the careful and intelligent manner in which he has carried on these 

 excavations. 



Much attention has been called of late to the Sculptured Rocks, 

 which are found especially in Northumberland and the eastern 

 border of Scotland. We have before us a very valuable little book 

 on these singular remains, by Mr. George Tate, of Alnwick, the 

 author of a very excellent History of Alnwick, the first volume of 

 which has been recently published. The book to which we allude 

 is entitled The Ancient British Sculptured Hocks of Northumberland 

 and the Eastern Borders, tuith Notices of the Remains associated with 

 these Sculptures. Mr. Tate's very comprehensive essay contains 

 carefully executed engravings of all the rock sculptures he has been 

 able to trace through the district just mentioned. These sculp- 



