Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/25

Rh whilst they overlay the cold bare scalp with flowers. Here we have the lowly Tormentilla reptans shedding the light of its yellow stars, with its delicately pencilled petals peeping out, no taller than the turf on which it grows. And here we have the wild thyme also breathing its aromatic odour through the fresh breezes which sweep around the hills, and make each respiration rich with new draughts of life. Here is an inexhaustible field for the botanist, but especially among the mosses, of which there is a great variety of the most beautiful specimens.

In the south-west corner of this pasture are two large conical tumuli, very much resembling the "Twin Barrow" described by Sir R. C. Hoare in his account of his Antiquarian researches among the Barrows in Wiltshire. They are about thirty-five yards distant from each other. The one is larger than the other, and there are traces of a fosse surrounding them, although it has been nearly filled up by the moss. The larger or western one is about thirty-five yards in the slope on the south side, which is the steepest and best defined, and about 150 yards around the base, being apparently full of stones, some of which appear to be of large dimensions. The eastern or smaller tumulus is about twenty-four yards in the slope, on the south-west side, and about 130 yards round the base. No stones are visible in it. The soil of which they are formed is of a peaty nature, and covered with stunted heather.

The evidences which we possess of the national character and habits, and of the various degrees of civilisation of the aborigines of Great Britain, are derived from their ancient dwellings and sepulchres; from cromlechs, barrows, cairns, and tumuli; from their weapons, ornaments and pottery; and from the remains of their agricultural implements; all of which afford abundant indications of the barbarism as well as the civilisation which surrounded the homes of our forefathers. The raising of mounds of earth or stone over the remains of the dead is a practice which may be traced in all countries to the remotest times. The simplest idea that can be suggested to account for its origin is, that as the little heap of earth displaced by the interment of the body would become the earliest monument by which the survivors were reminded of departed friends; so the increase of this by artificial means into the form of the gigantic barrow would naturally suggest