78 



The Forty-first General Meeting. 



from the Salisbury gravels — almost entirely from the neighbourhood 

 of Marlborough ; whilst the most intereresting of the coins were the 

 extensive Roman series from the site of Cnnetio — a site which has 

 also yielded to Mr. Brooke a very interesting series of fibulse and 

 other small bronze objects. In the case of both coins and flints 

 only a small portion of Mr. Brooke's collection could be exhibited, 

 as his specimens run into many thousands in each case. His col- 

 lection of flint implements — with very few exceptions picked up on 

 the surface of arable land around Marlborough — is a striking ex- 

 ample of the treasures which are spread over all the chalk districts 

 of North "Wilts, and are still waiting for the collector who will take 

 the trouble, as Mr. Brooke has done, to teach the labourers, the 

 ploughboys, the flint- diggers, and others employed on the land, to 

 know a flint implement when they see it. This knowledge is not 

 difficult to impart, really, although it may seem to be so, and the 

 result, as Mr. Brooke's collection — amassed as it has been in a very 

 few years — shows, is often beyond anything that could have been 

 expected. 



Mr. Brooke's paper, which was reported at length in the local 

 papers, and has been printed in pamphlet form, dealt with the 

 conditions of life in Palaeolithic and Neolithic times, touching on 

 the pin-pose and ages of Silbury, Avebury, and other similar 

 erections. The conclusions at which he arrived, however, that 

 Silbury and Marlborough mounds were erected as objects of 

 worship, and that it was partly the presence of sarsen stones 

 which caused the early settlers to congregate in North Wilts, 

 scarcely commend themselves to those who are not disciples of the 

 Phallic theory. 



FRIDAY, JULY 20th. 



At 9.15 a large party left the Town Hall in breaks for a long 

 day's excursion, the first stoppage being at MILDENHALL CHURCH, 

 where Mr. Ponting pointed out the architectural features and history 

 of the Church, which is fitted up throughout with elaborate oak 

 pews, gallery, altar-piece, and pulpit of the beginning of this century. 

 They are so good of their kind that in any " restoration " of the 



