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is certainly one of its early historians. He is probably best known as a map-maker, his maps now being valuable both monetarily and historically.

During recent years no one has written more concerning Cornwall than the Rev. Wladislaw Somerville Lach-Szyrma. He was formerly Vicar of Carnmenellis, near Redruth, and of Newlyn St. Peter, and is now vicar of Barkingside, Essex. He was born at Devonport on Christmas Day, 1841, his father being Colonel Krystyn Lach-Szyrma, a doctor of philosophy and professor in the University of Warsaw, who, having taken part in the Polish Revolution of 1831, was an exile in England. His mother was Sarah Frances Field Somerville, youngest daughter of Captain Philip Somerville, R.N., who fought under Nelson at Copenhagen, Boulogne, and elsewhere. In 1849 W. S. Lach-Szyrma entered the middle-class school of St. Stephen's Church, Devonport. Under his father's direction he early took an interest in languages, and was taught to speak and think in both French and Polish, besides learning the usual Greek and Latin. In 1859 he matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, when just seventeen years old. He took his "greats" when only nineteen, but went in for honours in second schools after his B.A. degree. He took a second class in honours in law and history. His first published work, a poem, was Heroes of the Day-Franklin and Garibaldi. an ethnological paper on the Position of the Slavonians among the Indo-European nations. His first curacy was at Pensilva, in St. Ives parish, where he worked energetically among the Cornish miners. After three years' work there he accepted the curacy of Princetown, after which he went to St. Paul's, Truro. In 1871 he was nominated vicar of Carnmenellis, an important and extensive mining parish. Here in 1872 a curious event happened. The Vicar was ill in London and the servants forgot to pull up the blinds. A rumour arose that he was dead, and the West Briton and some other West Country papers published kindly obituary notices, which they happily had soon to correct. In 1871, with Mrs. Lach-Szyrma (whom he married in 1854), he paid a visit to Paris, then in the hands of the Commune, and while the bombardment of Port Issey was proceeding, was at one time under fire. He

His next,

was librarian and tutor at St. Augustine's College, Canterbury. From here he went to the curacy of St. Faith, Stoke Newington. Bishop Temple (afterwards Archbishop) offered him the important parish of St. Peter's, Newlyn, where he remained fifteen years. There he wrote his Short History of Penzance and the Church History of Cornwall, the useful guide-book 222 Antiquities of Penzance, Newlyn and its Pier, and several papers on Cornwall. His last published work (1912) was a paper read before the British Archæological Association on parochial registers, in which he gave some interesting facts about Madron and Galval.

Among the parochial improvements introduced by Rev. W. S. Lach-Szyrma into Newlyn were the erection of Newlyn Vicarage, the enlargement of St. Peter's with a new aisle, the erection of schools, the Newlyn Institute, of which he was for nine years president, and the insurance of fishing-boats. In 1890, desiring to be nearer London, he exchanged with the Rev. T. Norwood Perkins, Vicar of Barkingside, Ilford, Essex.

APPENDIX I

DEPLORABLE STATE OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE LAND'S END DISTRICT OF CORNWALL

ON

NE purpose of this book, which I trust has been made apparent in its pages, has been to call attention to the inestimable wealth of prehistoric and historic remains in the west district of Cornwall. No part of England is so rich in them, and yet in no part of England have they been so neglected, mutilated, and even destroyed. I attempted some time ago to call attention to this important matter, and did so by means of a letter I wrote to the Press, and which appeared in the Morning Post, Queen, Academy, Pall Mall Gazette, Western Morning News, Western Daily Mercury, Antiquary, Morning Leader, Cornish Post, Cornish Telegraph, and other journals. I cannot do better than here reproduce that letter (as I do not think I can improve upon it), only hoping, nay, sincerely trusting, that some national effort will at once be made to preserve for posterity the invaluable relics of the past of which we are merely the trustees. The trust should be a sacred one, and it behoves us to pass it on unimpaired to future generations.

This is the letter which appeared in or about May, 1908, in the journals mentioned :

"I have recently visited nearly all the ancient monuments in the Land's End district of Cornwall, many of them in very inaccessible corners of the county. I regret to say that they sadly need attention with a view to preservation. Many of them are becoming quite buried and dilapidated, and in a few years will disappear altogether. They are all of immense archæological value, many being of inestimable prehistoric interest. I venture to assert without fear of contradiction that no part of England possesses such a wealth of antiquarian remains within so small a portion of earth surface. Surely it is not asking the nation too much to preserve, even at some considerable cost, those that are left for the benefit of our successors, who will probably value them much more than we seem to do. A glance at the Ordnance Map of Penzance, sheets 351 and 358, shows an extraordinary number of ancient British villages,

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cromlechs, stone circles, logan rocks, barrows, hut circles, giant's rocks, quoits, earthen or walled castles, sacred wells, chapels and crosses. I have closely inspected nearly all of these from Land's End to St. Ives, from Cape Cornwall to Lelant and Penzance, and can only tell a sad tale. In the first place many of the stone circles-so marked on the Ordnance Map-have ceased to be. In vain have I searched for some of the logan stones and menhirs. They have long ago been used up for gateposts or building purposes. The stones in the ancient chapels are rapidly disappearing one by one. The ancient British villages,' as they are called, are without exception simply buried beneath masses of destructive briars and fern. The beehive huts are similarly overgrown and almost undiscernible. Even locally I have had, in many instances, much difficulty in finding them. The neighbouring farmers are forgetting their existence, and labourers living close by, perhaps purposely, don't know where they are. These priceless relics of the past history of our country should, in my opinion, be preserved from vandalism and predatory attacks of those ignorant of their value and the levelling friction of wind, rain, and storm. A few of the prominent ancient monuments in the more accessible spots are more or less preserved (such as the Logan Stone, Lanyon Quoit, the Nine Maidens, the Blind Fiddler, and, speaking generally, the churchyard Celtic crosses), but the historic and prehistoric relics in the out-of-the-way and wild parts of Penwith, of quite equal value and importance, are allowed to go to destruction, or have already gone.

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The remarkably fine ancient British village of Chysauter is so buried up with ruinous vegetation as to be difficult to find. The beehive hut near Crows-an-wra-the most perfect specimen remaining-may well be taken for a heap of stones collected from the surface of the field whence it rises, overrun with rank vegetation, and actually trees of a fair size growing out of its walls. Tree roots in the natural process of growth are deadly enemies of ancient buildings. The ancient British village' near by is similarly hidden with bramble and fern. The very interesting old chapels fare no better. Chapel Downs, in Sancreed parish, once protected by iron railings by a late rector not many years ago, is now most dilapidated and the railings in fragments. Chapel Uny, in the same parish, is practically non-existent, and the well of the saint has now only two stones remaining showing any traces of carving. Bosence Chapel, also in Sancreed parish, is a rank mass of unkempt vegetation in the corner of a field, and was difficult to find. The ancient dwellings of Bollowall, near Carn Gluze, St. Just, are

APPENDIX I. AN APPEAL 455

similarly dilapidated, most of the stones are already gone, and in a short time will be filled up and obliterated with debris from the neighbouring mine. It is common knowledge that some of the most ancient carved bench-ends have gone to make pigsty doors and other articles of domestic use. St. Helen's Oratory, Cape Cornwall, is also already nearly non-existent, and so I might go on-the facts are all more or less equally painfully monotonous. I merely have mentioned a few concrete instances, and probably many of your readers could give more.

"Now the parsons of Cornwall, even if they be not all antiquaries, are all keenly desirous of preserving these ancient monuments of past civilisation, which are certainly not of parochial but quite national interest, but they lack funds. Many of them are poor men, and can do nothing at all. I have in my travels through the Land's End district of Cornwall more than once been asked how to preserve these monuments; whether it were better to scrape or recut rich Celtic crosses; whether to paint or distemper old fonts; how best to preserve old tracery on arches, windows, and tombs. I was glad to find such a genuinely active spirit of preservation abroad, for it shows the keenness of the clergy in the district to aid in the preservation of the memorials of the past of which they are tenants for life. Still, it always struck me that such queries should not require to be put. The nation should have rendered such questions

unnecessary.

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The clergy of Cornwall, I feel sure, will welcome any way that leads to the preservation of their monuments and aid any system that may be inaugurated to effect that end. The spirit truly is willing, but the pocket is empty. As it is, most of the fine old Celtic crosses in the churchyards have been placed there-rescued from serving other purposes, such as brook bridges, stepping-stones, gateposts-through the local parson's energies. These deliverances should be a national matter, and not left to the haphazard knowledge or ability of even a zealous set of men who have much else to do in other directions. The nation should awake to its responsibilities and take over the care of all these ancient monuments and remains, when perhaps signposts and fences will indicate where many of them are to be found. Local antiquarian societies do what they can, but their funds naturally are very limited and quite inadequate to cope with the pressing and urgent necessities of the case. "Yours, etc.,

"Oxford and Cambridge Club, Pall Mall.”

"J. HARRIS STONE.