ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 
315 
The Rev. Edward Trollope, at the same meeting, contributed an 
interesting paper on the historic incidents connected with Lincoln 
Heath ; and at the one next succeeding, the Rev. John Kenrick, of 
York, described the rise and suppression of the Templars in 
Yorkshire, a paper in which there is much interesting information 
with respect to this ancient order, and their settlements at Temple 
Newsome and other places. 
In a paper on the primeval condition of the inhabitants of the 
British Islands, by Mr. P. O'Callaghan, he considered that it may be 
possible that gold and copper had been known and partially used long 
before foreign art had taught the people to convert them to manu- 
factured articles. Gold, though usually found in small quantities, is 
more generally diffused than perhaps any of the native metals. It is 
also the most beautiful, and would probably be the most abundant in 
the first instance. It is not unreasonable to suppose that in these 
metalliferous islands gold may have been readily converted into per- 
sonal ornaments, even before the importation of the foreign art of 
smelting it. We must therefore look upon rudely-formed personal 
ornaments of gold as amongst the most ancient metallic relics in these 
islands. According to Irish annals, gold was worked and made into pins 
to fasten garments seven or eight centuries B.C. ; and he considers 
it at least a curious coincidence that pins, brooches, collars, and torques, 
are amongst the most ancient articles fabricated from metals in this 
country. He did not intend to enter into a detailed notice of all the 
gold ornaments found in this country, but he would cite one peculiar 
instance, in which a barrow, called the Hill of the Fairies, in Flint- 
shire, had been looked upon for ages with much superstition, and 
had been avoided by passengers at night. In 1833, an old woman 
was obliged to pass this way, and she was startled by seeing a spectral 
figure, clothed in a coat of gold, cross the barrow. This strange 
story made a considerable stir in the neighbourhood, and the owner 
of the land determined on removing the mound altogether. In doing 
so, he found rude urns of unbaked pottery, and burnt bones ; but on 
excavating to the base of the mound he came to a human skeleton, 
wrapped round the chest with a corselet of the purest gold, embossed 
with an ornamentation of superior design and workmanship. This 
