to which are explained on other grounds). The Phoenicians certainly 
worshipped the serpent under the name of Oh or Aub, and it is interesting 
to note the express allusion in Lev. xx. 27. 1 A man also or woman that 
hath Ob (or Aub) shall surely be put to death.’ ” 
Mr. J. F.Wadmore. — I hope I may be permitted to say a few words upon 
the subject before us this evening, as I am a student in the same direction 
as Dr. Phen<$. I think we all owe our thanks to Dr. Phene for his 
indefatigable labours. Nobody can be better aware than I am of the 
great expense, both of time and money, which is required to find out 
the many facts that are necessary to build up such a theory as his. We 
certainly read of an altar of stone in Scripture, and that no tool was to be 
used upon it (Exod. xx. 25), and in Stonehenge we find large masses of 
stone upon which no tool appears to have been used. There are several 
places that might have been brought in and cited as examples. I think that, 
looking at Avery, it was to some extent a temple, not in the mound form, it 
is true, yet, not without a mound within a distance of barely one mile, and 
from the rugge'd masses which compose the Druidical circle, one is disposed 
to believe that it was a hypethral temple, much anterior to that of Stone- 
henge ; it stands in an enclosure fortified with a mound and fosse, and 
formed, no doubt, one of those sacred oppida alluded to by Tacitus, where 
the Druidical mysteries were taught and handed down to kindred worship- 
pers of the sun and serpent ; for, stretching away from the oppida both in a 
S.E. and S.W. direction, are still to be seen the remains of a row of stones, 
traditionally an avenue, leading to the banks of the West Kennet, on the 
one side, and the village of Beckhampton on the other, between which lies 
the colossal mound of Silbury, covering an area of not less than five acres 
and a half of land. Sir Richard Colt-Hoare calls it The Hill of Assembly ; 
whatever it was, we find it here connected with a traditional Druidical 
temple and its serpentine avenue of stone. I have been led to this idea 
by looking at the general conformation of such places, with their camps and 
mounds and hill forts, all over the neighbourhood. There is another simi- 
larity in the hill fort at Cisbury, where you get a Vandyke running up to it 
in a peculiar sinuous, snake-like form. In the same way, at Marden, we 
get a peculiar form of works and mounds, we get three forms of the latter, 
one of which they used for tumuli, and some of these are very large indeed. 
But Dr. Phene has illustrated all the three classes. Then there are others, 
equally large, important, and interesting, and they have evidently been 
used as prehistoric citadels : of course, they have lost something of their 
original character, but they still retain sufficient of their form to show what 
they were. There are many examples in existing castles and citadels which 
bear out the idea, as at Windsor, Warwick, and Arundel, and other 
places. In many of these mounds there have been found coins, flints, 
pottery, and all sorts of things, which bear out the theory that the mounds 
and earthworks date far back into our history ; and Mr. John Evans has 
recently published a work which shows that the early civilization of Britain 
was by no means inconsiderable ; it appears from him, that there was a 
