PREHISTORIC REMAINS

139

for with the exception of this oblong small entrance, the structure is composed of stones, and is apparently solid. It stands quite solitary, no other similar remains near it that I could see, and if ever used for living purposes it must have been filled up since. Perhaps it is really the burialmound of some great departed chieftain. If so, why was this square entrance left? Perhaps once it had door-stones to seal up the cupboard-like recess, which have since been removed.

The late Mr. W. C. Borlase, M.A., discovered this most interesting antiquity in April, 1863, and he wrote: "The peculiarity of this tumulus is that it combines within itself the features of the stone grave, the ring barrow, the cromlech, and the passage chamber." When the barrow was opened no one knows; and the farmer on whose land it is only was prevented from razing it to the ground because it afforded a convenient shelter for his sheep and pigs in bad weather.

66

A long tramp from this tumulus, or hut," over many stiles, hedges, and fields, brought us to the remains of a connected series of what once were several grouped beehive huts, now all roofless, but with a regular wall or mound enclosing the lot.

You can get down and see the circular structures, opening one into another on some kind of regular plan; but the trees and bracken overgrowing the whole spot make it very difficult to make out the exact delineations of each. It is a great pity some antiquarian society does not have all the vegetation cleared away, so that visitors may properly see these unique relics of the past. An immense amount of valuable antiquarian research remains to be done in this part of Cornwall.

I crept down below the surface of the ground, some five feet, and entered the main hut, which was seemingly perfectly circular, having a diameter on the ground of fifteen feet. The circular wall is composed of roughly hewn granite stones, and facing the entrance-a mere square opening about four feet each way—was a square recess in the wall, looking very much like a fire-place, but without any chimney. If this hearth-looking spot was so used, the smoke must

1 Nænia Cornubiæ (1872), p. 77,

have filled the interior, unless the top of the beehive structure had an opening to allow it to get out. A passage from this main hut, running south-west, conducts to another, but also with a fire-place-looking recess, but which has an inclined square, narrow passage leading up to the level of the ground above.

These beehive huts naturally provoke much curiosity. Speculation concerning the origin and the people who used them can be freely indulged in. There seems to be little doubt that the very ancient Celtic churches were simple oratories, and circular or beehive-shape in form. But then the circular form of building would be almost natural in primitive times to those who had no means of shaping the quoins for the corners of a rectangular building. The beehive method of roofing, known us encorbelment, in which the stones are laid dry without mortar in successive layers or courses, each projecting slightly beyond that beneath, until the narrowing circle could be closed at the top by one flat stone, was always the early method. The beehive from which this Celtic architecture is named is itself becoming ancient, the circular apiarian structure of straw being more and more replaced by the less artistic but more utilitarian modern bechive of wood. The beehive method of roofing, it was discovered at a later date, could be applied to rectangular buildings, and the Celtic plan, still preserving some of the simple features of the early mason's work, developed into more elaborate structures.

In the present condition of our knowledge and methods of thought and research regarding these beehive huts and villages (a recent find of which has been made on the Westmorland fells, above Dale, Bank, Crossby, Ravensworth), one result only up to now is obtainable concerning themwe know next to nothing about the people associated with them, our predecessors in this Britain of ours and our forefathers in blood. As it is with the still older stone circles and earth encampments, so it is with these beehive huts. Are all the most interesting problems concerning the very ancient population of these islands, those prehistoric races who are our ancestors, to remain essentially insoluble? Is the antiquary to be always in the position of a scientific Tantalus-doomed for ever to thirst for a knowledge which