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The Thirty -Fifth General Meeting, 



any rate of pre-historic date ; that, whether they were the work of 

 the Early Britons, the Celts, or the Belgse, they were, at all events, 

 pre-Roman. But now, in removing a considerable portion of the 

 hank at Bokerley Dyke, and exposing the original surface on which 

 the excavated soil had been placed, General Pitt-Rivers has come 

 upon large quantities of Roman pottery, and several hundred Roman 

 coins of late date. This cannot be gainsaid, and we may take it as 

 proved that Bokerley Dyke, which Canon Jones, when writing on 

 this subject, considered to be the oldest of the ancient "Wiltshire 

 ditches, and whose date he attributed to some two or three centuries 

 before the Christian era, must henceforth be allowed to be of late 

 Roman, if not of post- Roman times. We would add that this 

 thoroughly scientific and exhaustive examination, by means of several 

 sections cut through one of the old boundary ditches, under the eye 

 of so experienced an engineer, cannot be too highly commended, 

 and we would say, all honour to General Pitt-Rivers, who has set 

 at rest for ever the question of date as regards Bokerley Dyke, and 

 has solved one of the riddles which it is the object of our Society to 

 explain. 



" In conclusion, we would add that there are many more riddles 

 before us which may yet tax our utmost endeavours, and that a 

 vast amount of material still awaits the careful examination of our 

 Members in all parts of the county. Your Committee trusts that 

 as the older Members, who have done such good work for our 

 Society, drop off (and we are very rapidly losing them), younger 

 and more active workers will come forward to take their places 

 and carry on the work with renewed diligence; for we are well 

 assured that great and continued and prolonged efforts must be 

 made in all parts of the county before we can claim to have in 

 any degree mastered the ancient and the natural history of Wiltshire. 

 This is a matter which the Committee earnestly entreats its Members, 

 scattered over the whole of the county, seriously to consider, for it 

 is only by the prolonged and repeated efforts of the many that the 

 objects which we all, as Members of the Society, have at heart can 

 be successfully accomplished." 



The Rev. W. P. S. Bingham, in moving the adoption of the 



