1848-49 BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT SALISBURY 345 
playing with a bland smile on his face, but the 
most dreadful compound of discords and noise. 
R. had gone upstairs for a few minutes, but 
hearing this strange thumping came down again 
to see what it was. I explained the situation to 
him in a whisper, and he soon grasped it. Mr. 
W. finally retired in discomfiture, and left the 
Prince still beaming with the most perfect good- 
humour.’ 
In August, Owen received an amusing letter 
from Sir Philip Egerton, descriptive of the 
meeting of the British Association at Salisbury, 
which he was unable to attend. It was chiefly 
composed of archaeologists, whose efforts were 
crowned with a success resembling in a strik- 
ing way the famous discovery made by Mr. 
Pickwick of the stone bearing the inscription, ‘ Bill 
Stumps his mark.’ Sir Philip, after saying how 
much he had been bored by the whole business, 
continued : — 
‘. . . I felt more at home standing on Inigo 
Jones’s palladian bridge and watching a fat old 
newt’s habit of life in the stream below, than in 
listening to the Dean of Hereford’s account of his 
diggings in the barrows. I had a sample of this 
sport quite worthy of “ Punch ; ’’ for on our way to 
Stonehenge we had a grand digging (only to be 
equalled by the Californian gold-diggers, to judge 
by the anxious faces and lively scrambles of the 
expectant archaeologists), and at length found — 
