178 Observations on the "Water Supply" of 



the habit of antiquaries to allude to them indifferently as British 

 and Roman encampments. It is very doubtful in the greater num- 

 ber of instances, for example, at Ogbury, near Stonehenge ; Winkle- 

 bury (called Vespasian's Camp), near Amesbury; at Oldbury, or 

 Codford Circle, in Wiltshire ; with Cissbury and Mount Caburn, 

 in Sussex ; whether these earthworks were in any case Roman en- 

 campments. Such positions have not ready access to water, and 

 one of the first principles in the laying out of camps with the 

 Romans, save under very exceptional circumstances, was the prox- 

 imity to water. Hyginus, in his " Castrarnetation," observes on 

 this point as follows : " Flumen sive fontem habere debent in quali- 

 cunque positione," therefore the earthworks, such as those just 

 named, totally removed from all water, can scarcely come under the 

 Roman category. There is no difficulty whatever in accounting for 

 a supply of water by means of pipes, &c, in cases of encampments 

 on lower ground, brought as it thus might be from some higher 

 source, but the case is very different with earthworks in higher 

 latitudes. As observed, such positions are generalised as encamp- 

 ments, but we do not remember to have met with any endeavour 

 to account for the water-supply, upon which alone the term " en- 

 campment'''' can be maintained. 



A recent visit to the above-named Wiltshire earthworks, to the 

 presumed camp or entrenchment on the summit of Cissbury Hill, 

 near Worthing, and to another on Mount Caburn, near Lewes, 

 convinced us that the circular pits or excavations, in many cases 

 adjacent to, and within the area of these earthworks formed by the 

 bank or vallum, have been wrongly dealt with. Their manifest 

 use was for collecting the rain water ; and looking at the matter 

 in a military point of view, unless the question of water can be 

 established, we much doubt whether such earthworks could ever, 

 under any circumstances, have been employed as encampments, for, 

 even assuming that the art of sinking Artesian and other wells, now 

 so thoroughly understood, could have been then employed, a matter 

 rendered impracticable from the dominating position of these 

 heights, it would have been simply impossible to have transported 

 water from the low grounds or valleys in quantity sufficient for the 



