156 president's addeess. 



Avas increased by additional side props and capstones placed 

 always at the East side." So, though ages had elapsed, the 

 people still had the same burial customs ; there had been no 

 change in the character of the interments ; the bodies were 

 still burned, and only the ashes and a few bones were brought 

 in for preservation. But the cromlech called De Hus 

 remained open and was used as a place of sepulture to a much 

 later period and probably by a different tribe, for in one of 

 the additional chambers there were* found two whole 

 skeletons, which had been buried in a kneeling posture side 

 by side. How long a period, how many centuries are we to 

 allow for all these processes ? 



But one other point claims special attention here, viz., 

 that in one of the cromlechs, " A kind of armlet, of a highly 

 decomposable alloy of copper," was found. Unfortunately we 

 are not told in which layer this occurred, but from the mention 

 of urns in the same paragraph, it appears as though it was in 

 the lowest or the second stratum, t At any rate we have here 

 a proof that we have arrived at a late period in the stone age 

 of Guernsey. 



On the mainland, at no great distance, the bronze age 

 had commenced, and this ornament was brought over as an 

 article of merchandise, or perhaps the body of the deceased 

 was brought to the Holy Isle for cremation and interment, 

 and this article still encircled the arm. 



The great number and the size of these erections show 

 that the island was pretty thickly populated, or that a 

 considerable body of people came over for the express purpose 

 of erecting them. The hundreds of urns point to a large 

 permanent population ; the bones of oxen show abundance 

 of pasture, and the cartloads of limpet shells and the fish 

 bones, that the sea was at no great distance. Here, then, we 

 have a people using polished stone implements, having 

 domestic animals, getting their living by farming, fishing and 

 hunting, and existing onward until the bronze age was 

 established on the mainland. They carried on, too, a certain 

 amount of trade, for some of the stone implements found in 

 the island are most beautifully shaped and smoothed from 

 stone not existing here, so that these and the copper and bronze 

 articles must have been brought by merchants from a distance. 



* P. 247. 



t Since the above was in type, I learn from a paper by Mr. Lukis, entitled 

 "Observations on the Primeval Antiquities of the Channel Islands," pp. 231, that 

 this torque was found under "La Roche qui sonne" (Vale parish) and above the 

 primeval deposit ; but as Mr. Lukis tells us, "It was ornamented with chequered 

 lines much resembling the patterns on some of the urns," we are justified in 

 referring it to the same period ; it may even have been fashioned by the same artist. 



