The Report. 



3 



incur any extraordinary expense in the way of exploration, restora- 

 tion, or otherwise, as we are often invited and sometimes expected 

 to do. 



"The Library and Museum have been enriched with many 

 donations, several of which are of great value, as illustrating the 

 topography, antiquities, and natural history of the county. Detailed 

 lists of these donations are given at the end of each number of the 

 Magazine. For these the Committee desires cordially to thank all 

 the contributors, and at the same time to remind the Members of 

 the Society scattered all over the county how great is the importance 

 of preserving in some Museum, whether at Devizes, Salisbury, or 

 Marlborough, objects which, when scattered and in private hands, 

 are of little value, but are of the highest interest when collected, 

 classified, and arranged for purposes of observation and study. The 

 Committee has again to report very important work carried out by the 

 munificence and under the personal superintendence and direction of 

 the accomplished archseologist,General Pitt-Rivers, whose excavations 

 at Bokerly Dyke, in the extreme south of the county, were recorded 

 in the Report last year. This year the General acceded to the 

 urgent request of the Secretaries, and made a large section through 

 Wansdyke, a little to the north of Old Shepherd's Shore. This 

 section was scientifically cut under the immediate eye of the General 

 and his three clerks, by a body of a dozen or more labourers, who 

 carried on the work for a fortnight in the spring of this year, when, 

 unfortunately, the weather was exceptionally cold and the wind 

 more than ordinarily keen and cutting. Though nothing was found 

 to indicate the exact date of the throwing up of the Wansdyke, the 

 discovery of some fragments of Samian ware on the original surface 

 of the down beneath the ramparts, in addition to the finding of an 

 iron knife and an iron nail, and the position in which these relics 

 I were respectively found, proved to the satisfaction of all who ex- 

 amined them that the work was not pre-Roman, as had generally 

 been supposed. But whether Roman or post- Roman (possibly even 

 Saxon) there is no evidence as yet to show. We rejoice, however, 

 \ to add that General Pitt-Rivers is not satisfied that the evidence is 

 exhausted, and proposes shortly to make further examination into 



