By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



187 



they migrated westwards B.C. 1500 ; 1 and may have bequeathed 

 to their descendants here. But it is idle to speculate farther 

 on such uncertain data, with no reliable proofs to guide us, though 

 it would add immensely to its interest to feel assured (what in 

 reality is not unlikely) that Silbury is contemporaneous with 

 the siege of Troy, the wanderings of Ulysses, and the period when 

 Jephtha judged Israel. 



I have purposely deferred to this place all mention of other 

 British mounds of large dimensions, because I cannot discover that 

 any of them have been explored internally, and therefore they can 

 throw no light on our subject, but stand in the same category as 

 Silbury, and what applies to one will be applicable in great 

 degree to all, for I entertain the opinion that they were almost all 

 thrown up for sepulchral purposes, to whatever uses they may after- 

 wards have been applied. I cannot however close this paper without 

 giving a brief account of some of the largest with which I am 

 acquainted. 



The first to which I call attention is Cruckbarrow Hill, three 

 miles S.E. of Worcester, and in the chapelry of Whittington or 

 Witenton : it forms from its situation a very conspicuous feature 

 in the landscape, but differs from Silbury in not being entirely 

 artificial, as it is evidently raised on a pre-existing natural emi- 

 nence of red marl, the prevailing soil of the surrounding country. 

 It is of an irregular elliptical form, and only rises at all abruptly 

 on the East and South sides, the first rise from the natural eminence 

 on the North being so gradual, that only a conventional line can 

 be taken in measuring the entire circumference : it is but forty- 

 eight feet in perpendicular height, 3 though it has a circumference 



1 Perhaps the date I have given is scarcely early enough. Bateman says that 

 scholars and chronologists assign the date B.C. 2100 for the passage of the Celts 

 across the Thracian Bosporus ; and B.C. 1600 for their immigration to England. 



2 When I read this paper before the Society at Avebury, I erroneously stated 

 that Cruckbarrow exceeded Silbury in dimensions, as I relied on the measure- 

 ment given in a printed guide book of the locality, and very kindly re-exam- 

 ined by the author at my particular desire, and repeated by him. But the 

 figures given seemed so strangely at variance, that I could not satisfy myself 

 without personal examination : and I subsequently made a pilgrimage to Wor- 

 cester for the express purpose of measuring this tumulus, when I found the 



