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third boulder was blasted by a farmer about forty

years ago.

The white stones at Gors Goch range in size from that of a tennis ball to a pin's head, the prevailing size being that of a small nut. An occasional white stone may be seen anywhere in the fields, but a quantity together, with charcoal, has hitherto been a sure sign that an interment lies beneath. Their exact location with reference to any burial is hopelessly lost, as all the spots, where urns or deposits have been found, are in fields which have been ploughed. As a general rule, the deeper the digging, the fewer the white stones. This would seem to show that they decorated the top rather than any other part of an interment. They have never been found underneath an urn or deposit of burnt débris or under a pile of these deposits, but every urn and interment has contained white stones, some fire-marked and some not. They are never quite as numerous as the small water-worn or fire-cracked grit-stones found mingled with them, and are sometimes much rarer. In half-a-barrowful of cremation débris, taken from three separate cavities for examination, only sixteen white stones were seen, the largest the size of a walnut, while the other stones numbered nearly 240. In another hole only a single white stone was picked out.

In the small vessel described in Arch. Camb., 1910, p. 377, there were four white stones, one a quartz crystal with a sharp point, and one grit-stone. An X-ray photograph of this urn, while intact, showed these five stones grouped about its centre, but nothing else of high specific gravity. As the vessel was only the size of a man's fist, they would seem to have been inserted intentionally. Possibly arrows and other weapons of a warrior were occasionally burnt apart from his body and their ashes enclosed in a small urn or excavated hole.

F. Circular Cavities.-In the patch of ground described in Arch. Camb., 1910, p. 374, no less than twelve

separate burials and one urn have been discovered either on or in the original surface. These have all been found in the upper half of the patch. In the lower half-the north end-nothing has come to light beyond slight fire-stains in the ochreous loam of the subsoil. In addition to these twelve interments, all of which contained calcined bones, five circular cavities have been opened, of which two contained dark earth with white and other stones; two others contained the serrated flints, and in the fifth, at its sides, were found two sherds, thickly mixed in the baking with minute quartz fragments, and so differing from the cinerary urns, which are of unalloyed clay. As none of these five hollows contained a vestige of bone fragments, so conspicuous in all the other deposits, and as cremated bones, according to Canon Greenwell, are practically indestructible by the ordinary agents at work in the soil, it seems likely that these hollows were food-receptacles, the food having been burnt as in the case of the human remains, for charcoal was evident in four of the five hollows.

Similar holes have been met with in Yorkshire, containing nothing but earth and chalk and occasionally some burnt matter, but they are confessedly a mystery at present. A chemical analysis' of greasy earth from one of these hollows showed

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The sample contained only 0.004 per cent. of oil, too small an amount to recognise its source.

Grit-stones. A remarkable number of grit-stones of peculiar shape have appeared in the Gors Goch crematorium-sharp-edged, pointed, angular, circular,

1 By Mr. John Evans, Public Analyst for Hull, etc.

or flaked. These were found embedded in the dark earth and bone-débris of the cremations. Some are thoroughly baked, and consequently friable and discoloured brick-red; others are merely stained through long contact with damp charcoal grains. The largest found was a thin flake, 7 in. in circumference, the edge of which was as sharp as an ordinary stone can become. Although it is quite possible that the shape of these stones is merely the result of splitting and splintering under the action of fire, yet it is curious that so many should appear in the actual remains of a cremation; and we are almost warranted by their number and location to suppose that they were intended for the use of departed friends, and that, where flints were so scarce, these were the substitutes. In the half-barrowful of earth, mentioned above, these peculiar stones actually outnumbered all the other stones put together.

The urn found in 1911 contained five of these sharpedged stones, two small white stones, ten bone splinters, all over 2 in. long, besides innumerable smaller bone fragments, and about forty small stones mixed with small pieces of charcoal.

CHARLES HEATH OF MONMOUTH, AUTHOR, PRINTER, AND PUBLISHER

NOTES BY WILLIAM HAINES

CHARLES HEATH of Monmouth, Printer, was born at Hurcott, near Kidderminster, Worcestershire, in the year 1761, and at an early age settled in the town of Monmouth as a printer during the latter part of the eighteenth century.

In a printed note on the cover of his Excursion Down the Wye, 1808, he says he had then been resident at Monmouth twenty years, so that, approximately speaking, this would fix his going there about 1788. Being endowed with a mind naturally observant, he soon found numerous objects in unison with his antiquarian taste in the county to employ his mind and printing-press, and, to use his own phraseology:-"A parent the most solicitous for the happiness of a favourite child could not more assiduously labour to promote its welfare than was he, in endeavouring to advance the local interest of his publications." He appears to have made his first attempt at sending through his press An Account of Some Portions of the Scenery of the Wye in the year 1795, and it is interesting to note that he combined the threefold character of author printer and publisher. I will here again quote his remarks in his preface to The Excursion Down the Wye, edition of 1799, where he says:-"I printed in the year 1795 an account of some of the writers on the river Wye, which I intended prefacing with notices of The Man of Ross'." However, it does not seem quite clear what accounts or works he refers

to as having printed. In that year (1795) he issued from his printing-press in the Market Place, Monmouth, A Description of Peresfield and Chepstow, a copy of which edition is now before me, and it is particularly interesting, being, I suppose, the first edition of his first book; and by a printed note on the cover at the end, he says:-"Just published (according to the plan of this part), price 2s. 6d., neatly done up in blue paper, A Descriptive Account of Tintern Abbey"; and below, "Also preparing for publication, A Description of Ragland Castle, from New Material and Local Information, to which will be added Abergavenny Castle," etc.

On turning to his Ragland Castle, I find he began to collect materials for his account of that place and the neighbourhood in the year 1792, just three years previously to the publication of his first work before referred to. He successively wrote, printed, and published his Account of Tintern Abbey-The Excursion Down the Wye from Ross to Monmouth, Wilton and Goodrich Castles, Courtfield, New Weir; The Swift Family, with Memoirs of the Man of Ross-Historical and Descriptive Accounts of the Town and Custle of Chepstow and Peresfield-Peresfield, Chepstow, Caerwent, the Passages, and the Road to Bristol and Gloucester-Ragland Castle The Kymin Pavilion, Beaulieu Grove-The Naval Temple and Buckstone, with an Account of Lord Nelson's Visit to MonmouthA History of the Town of Monmouth, both in 8vo and 4to sizes (1804), and (reprinted from a MS. copy) a rare Tract, lent him by the celebrated Actor, Mr. Waldron, entitled "Lamentable News out of Monmouthshire in Wales, containing the most wonderful and most fearful accidents of the great overflowing of waters in the saide Countye, Drowning infinite numbers of Cattell of all kinds, as Sheepe, Oxen, Kine, and Horses, with others, together with the losse of many men, women and children and the submersion of xxXVI

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