as obscure as those of the personages and their times to which these stones relate. This subject of the preservation of these monuments should be earnestly pressed on the attention of the gentry and landowners of Wales, by whom their existence is little heeded, and who would probably, if they did know of them, be glad to have them removed to the churchyard, or some other place of safety. If the leading members of this Association would themselves undertake to bring the subject home to their friends and neighbours, much might be done; but as such efforts would want one of the main elements of success,-system, it would be better to appoint a sub-committee of the Association to take the matter into consideration, and to recommend some plan of action against our next annual meeting. In the meantime the subject might again be treated of extensively in our Journal, and urged upon the attention of all members.

To give an instance of what I think should be done: the inscribed stone at Barmouth should be removed either to Llanaber Church, or to a museum at Dolgellau, instead of being taken, as I understand has been thought of, to the British Museum. The copies of the stones should be collected together in the metropolitan gallery, but the stones themselves should not be removed further from their sites than is absolutely necessary.

The Porius inscription, now lying on a hill side in Merioneth, though fenced round by the care of the gentleman on whose land it is, should be removed to Trawsfynydd Church, or to the museum which will, I hope, be established at Dolgellau.

The inscribed stones on the Margam estate in Glamorganshire should either be all gathered into sanctuary at Margam Abbey, where Mr. Talbot and his successors would guard them better than their tenants, or they should be given up by that gentleman and his family, if ever they ceased to value them,-a most improbable alternative I admit, to the museum at Swansea, where they would be guarded by the municipal authorities, and would be accessible for all purposes of study.

I mention the study of these monuments, because, like all other objects of archæological inquiry, they deserve careful and systematic study, examination, and comparison. We cannot, however, carry on a systematic examination and comparative study of these monuments, until we have them engraved and published. It would be an object well worthy of our Association to take measures, in concert with Mr. Westwood, for engraving and publishing his entire collection, if by no other more rapid means, yet at least by the slow medium of the Journal. Two inscriptions, at least, might be engraved and published in each successive number; but I confess my own expectation to amount to this, that a complete collection of all Mr. Westwood's inscriptions, and of other similar monuments in Wales, might be published with a pretty fair certainty of remuneration for the comparatively small cost it would entail.

I would recommend that merely an account of the condition of the stone or monument, of its probable interpretation, and of its locality, should accompany each engraving; the full account of the whole collection, the description of the complete Corpus Inscriptionum Britannicarum must be left to some future antiquary, who, in imitation of Mr. Wilson, shall undertake to write the Prehistoric Annals of Wales.

II.-The Early British Earthworks and Camps continue to exist more by their own vis inertiæ, than by any favour of the gentry and farmers towards them. In most cases they are considered as unprofitable and unsightly excrescences by the landowner, and the tenant hopes either to find a crochon aur under them, or at least to level his fields and to scatter their materials over the surface. Very seldom, if ever, is it considered that these passive green mounds are part of the history---the visible records of the nation: that the destruction of a mound, the obliteration of an ancient boundary trench, the ploughing down of a camp, is an act the same in nature, though not in degree, as the lighting a kitchen fire with the MS. of some national record,-or the lighting

up of a street stall with an ancestral pedigree. Nothing short of the decided will of the landed gentry can guarantee the preservation of monuments of this kind, and it must be confided to their good feeling and intelligence altogether.

As an example of what may be done, and which is the most certain way of preserving monuments of this kind, I may mention that some portions of Offa's Dyke have been planted at various times,-recently by the Earl of Powys: and this may well be recommended, as, on the whole, the most feasible plan of concealing, and, therefore, as things now go, of preserving, these remains for other generations.

The study of these remains still has to be carried on upon a systematic scale; few have the leisure and the means for effecting it; but something is nevertheless doing in this matter by isolated observers. We are not likely to have another Pennant for Wales, and therefore one of the most useful ways of carrying on the comparative study of Early British works would be for the various observers to take each their own district, no matter however small,-to work them thoroughly, -to map their results, and to compare their operations through the medium of a sub-committee named for superintending and classifying operations of this nature.

The opening of tumuli, carneddau, &c., I am, I confess, rather opposed to, as premature, until local museums are established in which their contents may be preserved. I always regret when I hear of any monument of the kind being rifled of its contents to gratify the desultory curiosity of the incidental examiner. The remains of the rude arts and manufactures of our early ancestors are of little value when scattered over private and unimportant collections; but when placed in the cases of museums, catalogued, arranged and described, they then form valuable portions of collections of Comparative Archeology, if I may venture to borrow a term from

another science.

I need only remind the Association of the labours of

Mr. Wynne, and Mr. Ffoulkes, and Mr. Morgan in this particular branch of antiquities, to illustrate my meaning and to point out its bearings.

We are still in want of a complete and systematic survey of the whole of Offa's Dyke, connecting its position with the various works and camps erected by so many different tribes of men along its course. Is there

no member of the Association who would be able and inclined to put the Ordnance maps into his valise, and to spend a summer's month in riding up and down its entire course, from the Dee, southwards to, and across, the Severn? The whole line of border hill forts is worthy of systematic observation,-the line of sea beacons not less so; the whole subject in fact is pregnant with interest, and, in a systematic point of view, is comparatively untouched. I should conceive that the labours of a sub-committee might be most beneficially directed towards it, and that the registering and illustrating of them would constitute at all times an acceptable feature of our Journal.

III.-The class of Cromlechau, Meini Hirion, and other similar remains, is one that calls not less urgently for the systematic study and preservation of our Association. Sad havoc has been made of these venerable monuments! Much as they have racked the brains and broken the tempers of those who have tried their hands at interrogating and explaining their mysterious signification, ample revenge has been taken upon them by the "agricultural interest," and the wrongs of antiquaries have been compensated by the indignation of farmers. Seldom is a cromlech allowed to stand, if there be any practicable and cheap means of getting it down; rarely, if ever, is a maen hir allowed to stand in the way of the plough, if the tenant can buy powder enough to blast it, and convert it into materials for repairing the nearest wall.

In Anglesey, at Trevor, near Beaumaris, the tenant, some years ago,-not many,-threw down two cromlechau, with the landlord's assent, because they, the

stones, were superstitious! and thus the poor dolts of stones lie still in their superstitious inertness.

In the same island, and indeed all over Wales, meini hirion have been waged perpetual war against, but one of the most wanton pieces of destruction of this kind has been the obliteration of the Beddau Gwyr Ardudwy, above Ffestiniog, in Merioneth, and the using up of the stones that formed these graves for a neighbouring wall. The great Druidic circles on the back of Penmaen Mawr, in Caernarvonshire, have been nearly destroyed from the same motives, and amid the same apathy of the surrounding gentry.

At the present moment, in Pembrokeshire, about a mile from Newport, on the road to Fishguard, there is a most interesting Druidic monument in imminent danger of destruction. It consists of five cromlechau arranged like the radii of a circle, branching off from a common centre. Some of them are more perfect than the others, but they have all been cleared from the surrounding stones and earth; the tenant is very anxious for their removal, and it is said that the owner of the land is indifferent about matters of this kind; the probability, therefore, is, that within a few years a new wall will have been added to the field, but that this almost unique monument will have disappeared.

Cromlechau and meini hirion, like carneddau and caerau, cannot be removed to any museum; the consequence is that they must depend for their preservation entirely upon the good will of the landowner. Now, let the owner of any land, however noble and intelligent, be informed by his agent that the removal of certain stones is desirable for the improvement of his land, or the interest of his tenant, and it is almost a moral certainty that the stones, however Druidic, will be ordered to be blasted forthwith.

I am not aware of any systematic examination of this class of monuments being carried on at the present time; and yet their value is appreciated, and is rising in public estimation all over Europe, and even beyond the limits

ARCH. CAMB., NEW SERIES, VOL. IV.

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