By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



151 



assured that those who directed the throwing up of Silbury 

 were not wanting in courage and ability to accomplish so mighty 

 a work ; 1 for without question a mighty work it was, and especially 

 if we consider that in all probability every particle of it was carried 

 in baskets on the shoulders of the workmen, as was and is the 

 custom of barbarous nations : 2 though I confess it dwindles down 

 to the comparative insignificance of a mole-hill when placed side 

 by side with the gigantic results of railway embankments within 

 the last thirty years, so graphically described in a recent article in 

 the Quarterly. 3 There we are told that it is almost impossible " to 

 form an adequate idea of the immense quantity of earth, rock and 

 clay, that has been picked, blasted, shovelled and wheeled into 

 embankments by English navvies during the last 30 years : on the 

 South Western Railway alone the earth removed amounted to 

 sixteen millions of cubic yards, a mass of material sufficient to form 

 a pyramid 1,000 feet high, with a base of 150,000 square yards. 

 Mr. Robert Stephenson has estimated the total amount on all the 

 railways in England as at least 550 millions of cubic yards, and 

 what does this represent ? " We are accustomed," he says, " to re- 

 gard St. Paul's as a test for height and space ; but by the side of 

 the pyramid of earth these works would rear, St. Paul's would be 



1 The grand dimensions of Silbury attracted the particular notice of King 

 Charles II. during a Royal progress to Bath ; and under the guidance of Aubrey 

 the "merry monarch" ascended to the top. [Hoare's Ancient Wilts, ii., 59. 

 Stukeley's Abury, 43.] 



2 It is a ridiculous but significant fact that when a railway plant was sent to 

 India from this country, the natives who were employed as labourers in the work, 

 mistaking the use of the wheelbarrows, filled them with earth and then placed 

 them on their heads, and so proceeded to carry them to the embankment they 

 were forming. The same thing is told of the negroes in South America : "they 

 seem to prefer carrying burdens on their heads, transporting the very heaviest 

 articles in this way: it is said that when the railway to Petropolis was being built, 

 the negroes insisted on carrying the handbarrows (which were furnished to them) 

 on their heads, turning the wheel in front with the hand, in time to their song." 

 [From New York to Delhi by way of Rio de Janeiro, Australia, and China, by 

 Robert Minturn : Longman, 1858.] And Sir James Emerson Tennant in his 

 admirable work on Ceylon, says, "the earth which formed the prodigious 

 embankments and Dagobahs in Ceylon was carried by the labourers in baskets 

 in the same primitive fashion which prevails to the present day," [vol. i., p. 464]. 



3 Quarterly Review for January, 1858. 



