I 



62 On British Stone and Earthworks 



distinct from these are the long barrows containing the stone chamber 

 at the east end, formed of massive stones with entrances of stone, 

 to which I alluded just now. I should add that the barrows on the 

 Marlborough Downs are declared by Sir Richard Hoare to be more 

 ancient than those of South Wilts. 



I cannot leave this part of my subject without making mention 

 of the great mound at Marlborough, and the still larger mound of 

 Silbury, certainly the largest tumulus in Great Britain, and if we 

 except one or two in Russia, the largest in Europe : but whether or 

 no these are spulchral, must be matter of conjecture for the present, 

 though I for one entertain a firm belief that such was their primary 

 intention; and I am not without hopes that we may on some future 

 occasion (if permitted by the owner) probe once more the sides 

 of Silbury, in hopes of discovering the sepulchre or one of the 

 sepulchres which I strongly suspect lies somewhere within that 

 enormous pile. 1 



(5) " Boundary Banks and Ditches." Wherever you may 

 traverse any tract of down undisturbed by tillage, you are almost 

 certain to see banks and ditches stretching over the turf in some 

 direction ; boundary ditches, perhaps, to mark off the territory of 

 bordering aboriginal tribes or clans, or the domain of one chieftain 

 from that of his neighbour. They vary from the scarcely-perceptible 

 elevation or depression on the undisturbed turf to the bank or ditch 

 of considerable size. But besides these insignificant divisions, there 

 were other boundary banks and ditches, thrown up with immense 

 labour, to protect the encroaching Belgse from the exasperated 

 Britons whose lands they had overrun. Thus as they advanced from 

 the south, and pushed on their conquests towards the north, the 

 Belgse secured the country they had gained, by a formidable barrier 

 of protection, with the ditch towards the north and the bank towards 

 the south. Several of these may be seen in the south of the county, 

 in the well-known " Bokerly Ditch," south of Salisbury, and that 



1 See my paper on Silbury, read before the Society at Abury during the Annual 

 Meeting at Marlborough, September, 1859 : and printed in the Magazine, vol. 

 vii , pp. 145—191. 



