60 Guide to Ike British and Roman Antiquities of the North 



pens, or other enclosures, and any other earth or stone works, and all other an- 

 tiquities which this portion of the downs might possess. . . . The map 

 professes to deal only with the table-land of the downs, and to ignore the sur- 

 rounding valleys altogether. It does not pretend to be a modern topographical, 

 so much as an arckceological map, the main object of which is to define as near 

 as may be the exact spot of the several antiquities with which it has to deal." 



We are quite prepared to believe in the intense enjoyment the 

 author tells us he found in his daily rides " athwart and askwy " on 

 the area of his investigations ; for nothing" less than an interest 

 amounting to a " second nature" could have sustained such patient 

 and minute research. 



The map, however, as Mr. Smith remarks, would have been de- 

 prived of a chief part of its merit had it not been accompanied by a 

 key, in which every antiquity of the British and Roman period is 

 designated with a letter which indicates its exact position. 



In an introduction Mr. Smith condenses an immense fund of in- 

 formation on the various classes of antiquities noted in the subsequent 

 pages. He advocates the theory that the circle at Abury was 

 a temple, and in this, as on some other points, is at issue with 

 Fergusson, from whom he differs in opinion as to the age of the 

 Wiltshire monuments. When speaking of the barrows of that part 

 of the county he points out that the common mode of sepulture was 

 simple interment on the open down, whereas the cromlechs and 1 

 barrows mark the tombs of the mighty dead ; and he aptly compares 

 burial under a barrow within view of the great sanctuary of Abury 

 to burials of the eminent of our time in Westminster Abbey. Fol- 

 lowing Dr. Thurnam, he divides the barrows into two classes, long 

 and round — the former the work of the pre-metallic period when 

 metal was unknown, or so scarce as to be practically unemployed ; 

 the latter belonging to the bronze period. In the long barrows of 

 the Wiltshire downs the contracted position of the corpse was 

 general. In the round barrows the bodies, whether burned or not, 

 were more commonly enclosed in a cist. The objects found in these 

 early graves are thoroughly representative of those usually discovered 

 in similar positions, and form the subjects of illustrations, as, e.g., 

 incense cups, arrow heads, stone breast-plates, celts, bone tweezers, 

 &c. The personal ornaments, however, found in the North Wilts 



