Notices of New Books. 



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the black mud, was found a ring or circular bank of fine white earth, 

 sufficiently solid to allow Mr. Birch to ride upon it without yielding 

 to the weight of his pony ; indeed it seems to have been about as firm 

 as average sea-sand when damp. Outside this ring the bottom of the 

 mere was so soft and deep as to be almost impassable until the mud 

 was cleared away. The ring or bank was some twenty or thirty feet 

 across, a foot wide, and about four feet in height. Not far from its 

 inner circumference was a circular hole, about four feet and a half in 

 diameter, some six feet deeper than the bottom of the mere, and, as 

 my informant states, almost like a well to look at. The mud it con- 

 tained was even softer than that elsewhere. This was marked out by 

 a circle of stout stakes, or small piles, apparently of alder (Alnus glu- 

 tinosa), and it bore traces of having been wattled. It was not in the 

 centre of the ring, and between the two circles were the remains of a 

 wall, composed of flints parked together with marl or soft chalk. In 

 the same place was some earth of a bright blue colour, which, when 

 dried, crumbled to powder, and was not preserved, though there are 

 traces of it on some of the bones. In this interspace a still greater 

 number of bones were found, and also the remains of a rude ladder, but 

 in such a state of decay it could only be pulled out piecemeal. Still 

 enough of it was seen by Mr. Birch in situ for him to have no doubt 

 as to its original form. Its sides were about fifteen inches apart, and its 

 rounds about the same distance from one another. The stakes appear 

 to have been riven from trees some four inches in diameter. They 

 were very hard, as heavy as stone, and of a dark gray colour. The 

 fragments of the ladder, on the contrary, were very rotten and light, 

 but the remains of both, after being kept some time, exfoliated and 

 crumbled entirely to dust. In and around this ring there lay, as 

 I have said, a vast number of bones, of which no small portion were 

 the upper parts of the skulls of Bos longifrons, with the horn-cores 

 attached, and many antlers of the red deer, either entire or in frag- 

 ments. All the former, excepting one unusually large example, had 

 a fracture in the forehead. I believe that hitherto no decisive evi- 

 dence has been adduced to prove that in England the long-fronted 

 ox was contemporary with man, but the appearance of these skulls 

 removes all further doubt on that subject, and corroborates the 

 conjecture put forth several years ago by Professor Owen, that this 

 species was probably domesticated by the aborigines of Britain before 

 the Roman invasion. Of the deers antlers some have certainly been 

 shed in the due course of nature ; others, on the contrary, have been 

 separated from the head by sawing, as is conclusively shown by a speci- 



