THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
27 
mounted by objects of Romano-British date. 1 The succession from 
the Neolithic and Pre-historic Period was thus complete. 
The trivial name of Giant's Grave is not always undeserved. 
Two stone kists, or chambers, discovered at Lundy, contained two 
skeletons, respectively eight feet two inches and seven feet in length. 
Adjoining were other graves of ordinary character, and a mass of 
mixed bones, red pottery, beads, and bronze ornaments — the bones 
being those of men, women, and children. 2 If the whole of these 
interments were contemporary the "giants" in this case are of 
course of much later date than the period under review ; but the 
description seems to leave us free to infer that we have here some 
such casual association as at Chapel Karn Brea. A remarkable 
feature in the interment of the larger "giant" was that the skeleton 
was covered with limpet shells, a feature which distinguishes this 
burial from all others recorded in this county. 
The round barrows, whether of the West of England, of Great 
Britain, or the Continent, present, as already hinted, many forms. 
Some are cairns of stone; others mounds of earth. Some cover 
mere handfuls of burnt bone, the remains of a surface funeral 
pyre; others are chambered, or inclose dolmens or kist-vaens, or 
urns, or conceal simple graves. Some are mere heaps; others are 
girdled by a ring of stones, or a ditch; and in some the stone circle 
forms part of the internal structure. The kist-vaen may be either 
a rude box or a gigantic cromlech. 3 Some bodies are inhumed, 
others are burnt. When unburnt they may be extended or con- 
tracted ; and there are also cases in which fire seems to have been 
applied, not effectively, but in accordance with a kind of ritual. 
Many barrows yield neither implements, nor weapons of stone or 
metal; others are prolific. Now these variations are to a large 
extent accidental, dependent upon the rank and possessions of the 
dead and the nature of the surroundings. Interments differed with 
local characters and conditions in pre-historic times, much as they 
differ now. But we have as surely in them indications likewise of 
varying mental powers and distant dates. There is little to dis- 
tinguish an Anglo-Saxon grave per se from a grave of modern 
make ; but they yield very different results on exploration. Barrows 
1 Trans. Penz. Nat. Hist. Soc. 1880-1, pp. 12-14, 37. 
2 J. R. Chanter, Lundy Island, p. 49. 
3 I use this word in the local sense ; its stricter application is to a stone 
circle, and our cromlech becomes the dolmen. 
