527 
to which, the teeth of these ancient people have been subjected. 
The corn was also, perhaps, not very well ground, and 
required the human grinders to be brought into very active 
operation, which may also account for the state of the teeth. 
Grain must have formed no unimportant item in their dietary, 
and was grown upon the terraces, which are so frequent a 
feature on the sides of hills, in connection with British 
settlements. They are found in great abundance in Craven. 
These terraces are similar to those upon which the vine is 
grown on the Rhine, and were useful in preventing the 
washing away of the cultivated soil upon the sloping side of 
a hill. Two reasons may be adduced to account for cultivated 
ground being so frequently situated in such unlikely places 
as the bare and steep hill sides. The valleys were then 
subject to constant overflowing, and would be very swampy 
and unfit for growing grain ; and in the disturbed and 
unsettled state in which these people lived, it was necessary 
to have so important a possession as the corn-growing laud 
under the immediate protection of the fortresses, which were 
ordinarily situated on high and defensible ground. The 
country then presented a very different aspect from what it 
does now, for a very large portion of the land was forest. 
Nearly all our bare hills, which now grow ling, were once 
thickly clothed with wood, and that too of a large size. 
Wherever, in fact, a peat moss has been drained, or otherwise 
examined, there large quantities of timber are found, princi- 
pally oak ; but pine and birch are not uncommon. In these 
forests ranged numerous herds of deer and wild swine, whilst 
a small species of ox seems, from its remains, to have been 
abundant. Every man was then no doubt a hunter, and the 
flesh of these animals formed a principal article in their food ; 
the large numbers of the bones of these beasts, in all cases 
split open to obtain the marrow, which are found near their 
places of dwelling, testify to the abundant supply of game 
v v 
