436 The Sixtieth General Meeting. 



Medlicott, as a Vice-President of our Society, in the absence of our 

 President, heartily welcomed the Cambrians to Wiltshire. Dr. 

 Boyd Dawkins then called on Mr. Albany F. Major to speak on 

 the WANSDYKE. He said that the Wansdyke was divided into 

 three sections, (a) that which ran through Somerset, (b) the section 

 from the Avon Valley through Wiltshire to Savernake Forest, (c) 

 that from the east side of Savernake to the borders of Berkshire. 

 The Somerset section (a) had been recently examined by the Bath 

 and District Branch of the Somerset Archaeological Society, but 

 the excavations had produced no definite evidence as to its date. 

 The eastern section (c) had never been examined, and there was 

 little information as to its course. The middle section (b) had 

 been examined by Gen. Pitt Rivers and pretty well proved to be 

 of late Roman or Romano-British date. Mr. Major agreed with 

 Gen. Pitt Rivers that the main purpose of Wansdyke was defensive, 

 like the walls of Hadrian and Antonine in the north, and that it 

 was designed to defend the open down country between the valleys 

 of the Thames and the Avon from an attack from the north. Major 

 Godsal, on the other hand, contended that Wansdyke was never 

 a military defence, no line of the sort ever could be. It was the 

 boundary line drawn between two peoples, doubtless the Saxons 

 under Ceawlin and the Britons. " This Wansdyke was once the 

 boundary of Wales and designed, as I believe, by Ceawlin to enable 

 his followers to collect for the great advance northwards which he 

 eventually made." Sir Henry Howorth followed on the same side, 

 contending strongly that it was a boundary line and not intended 

 for actual defence. 



At AVEBURY the Rev. E. H. Goddard gave a description of 

 the circles, the earthworks, and the origin and distribution of the 

 sarsen stones, dwelling on the fact that there never could have been 

 any number of them on Salisbury Plain.and that the stones of Stone- 

 henge must have come from the Marlborough neighbourhood. Sir 

 Henry Howorth suggested the placing of a post at each spot where a 

 stone was known to have stood. This would enable visitors to gain a 

 much better idea of what the plan had been than from any verbal 

 description. Dr. W. H. St. John Hope drew attention to the very 



