166 Barrows on lioundway Hill. 



of the fragments of the vessel mentioned above, I have been 

 enabled to ascertain its original size. It was about nine inches in 

 height, and five and a half inches diameter. The wood of which 

 it was formed was thin, apparently less than a quarter of an inch 

 in thickness. Microscopic examination proves it not to have been 

 coniferous wood. There were two hoops only, one of them is en- 

 tire; they are formed of thin brass, over-lapping at the ends, and 

 the joints were made with soft solder. The ornaments consist of 

 rows of dots, produced by punching on the inside of the hoops. 

 The broader hoop was fastened to the wood with iron rivets, the 

 heads of which were plated with brass. The triangular plates are 

 also of brass, they were secured to the pail by an iron rivet through 

 the point of each, the broad ends being inserted under the hoop. 

 They are decorated with rows offplots, similar to those on the 

 hoops. 



Mr. Akerman remarks, "That it is much to be regretted that 

 the excavation of this tumulus was not superintended by some 

 person accustomed to such researches, bs the details which have 

 reached us are not so satisfactory as could be desired." It is in- 

 deed too true that much valuable information is lost because the 

 persons who open barrows are not experienced in the matter, and 

 do not make full and correct observations. 



In the same year Mr. Colston made some extensive plantations 

 on Roundway Hill, and in the early part of August the workmen 

 disinterred three skeletons, which were found lying close together, 

 a little more than a foot beneath the surface, at the bottom of an 

 old trench, which takes a direction east and west across the Down, 

 immediately opposite Castle Hill. They subsequently found another 

 skeleton about three quarters of a furlong to the south-west of the 

 last, at the same depth below the surface, but this was the most 

 remarkable of the four, inasmuch as the skull exhibited two severe 

 sabre wounds, one on the front, the other on the hinder part, and 

 the right arm severed from the body, had been deposited between 

 the legs of the corpse. The bones were those of a strong young 

 man, who judging from the thigh and leg would stand upwards of 

 six feet in height. Each of the skeletons, from the comparative 



