Recent Wiltshire Books and Articles. 



345 



Ditto, No. 45, for the Year 1896. Reports progress " probably surpassing 

 auy previously achieved in breadth of result." After notices of the meetings 

 and field-days, and some papers on general subjects, Mr. Meyrick gives a 

 very useful list of the Cretaceous Fossils of the Marlborough District. The 

 Entomological Section reports five species new to the neighbourhood. 

 Weather observations and other carefully-compiled statistics bring the 

 number to an end. 



Address to the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 

 on the occasion of its visit to Dorchester, August 3rd, 1897, by 

 Lieut. -General Pitt-Rivers, President of the Meeting, enlarged 

 and copiously illustrated to serve as a Guide to the Bronze and 

 Stone Age Models in the Museum, Farnham, Dorset. 4to. 1897. 

 Pp. 30. {Trivately printed.) 



It is needless to say that this address is exceedingly well worth reading, 

 and that it is admirably illustrated. Before passing to the excavations in 

 Wilts and Dorset, for which he is so famous, General Pitt-Rivers touches on 

 a subject of very great interest, viz., the discovery of flint implements in 

 situ in the stratified gravels of the Nile Valley. He claims to have been 

 the first to make this discovery in 1881, and actually chiselled worked flakes 

 out of tlie wall of an ancient Egyptian tomb. Sir William Dawson thought 

 fit in 1884 to question the human origin of these flakes, and General Pitt- 

 Rivers returns to the charge most vigorously and thoroughly vindicates 

 their artificial character, dwelling on the importance of the evidence of 

 their age from their being found in situ deep down in gravels which had 

 first had time to become solidified, and afterwards to be excavated by the 

 Egyptians for their tombs. Leaving this subject, the author passes on to 

 the four rectangular camps which he has excavated near Rushmore, all of 

 which he has proved by thorough excavation to belong to the Bronze Age — 

 and although neither of these earthworks is remarkable for size or ap- 

 pearance, yet the importance of their excavation from an archaeological 

 point of view is second to no work of the kind done in England in recent 

 years— inasmuch as they are the only camps which have as yet been proved 

 to be of the Bronze Age. The system of excavation pursued by the General 

 is explained, and its results as regards the camps in question and the neigh- 

 bouring barrows most lucidly set forth by the help of plans and diagrams, 

 and the address ends with a plea for exhaustive records of all excavations 

 made, and for the fuller illustration by archaeological societies of all objects 

 that may be found. It is an admirable account of the way in which the 

 General works himself, and of the sort of results that arise from his method. 

 The illustrations— mostly taken from the 4th vol. of Excavations in 

 Cranborne Chase (not yet published) — consist of : — A Plan explanatory of 

 the discovery of flint implements near Thebes— Plan of South Lodge Camp 

 — Map showing Tumuli and Earthworks near Handley — Plan of Entrench- 

 ments on Handley Hill, &c. — Plan of Wor Barrow, Angle Ditch, &c. — 

 Average Section of Angle Ditch— Plan of Martin Down Camp— Average 

 Section of Rampart and Ditch of ditto —Average Sections of Ditch of Wor 



