conceive that many of the dwellers upon the Plains of Shinar, conceived the plan seeking their fortunes on the seas and finding a home in remote lands wherein never had mankind dwelt. Not only were the details of the construction of the Ark fresh in the minds of many then living, but that memorial of the triumphs of naval architecture itself remained in existence-enabling vessels to be built after its model. Britain it is supposed was discovered in one of the exploring expeditions, which left the shores of the East at this epoch; but it was not till about sixteen or seventeen centuries before the Christian Era, that it was colonized. About that period an enterprising band, roaming up the Thames, in quest either of prey, or a convenient site for permanent residence; probably sailed up the wide and noble estuary formed by the river Ebbsfleet, near

theologians of the present day, and was maintained by many former writers. See Carpzoo, Introd. i, 57. Vitringa, Obser. Sac. i, 1. Dissert. i, 4. Le Clerc. Proleg. Dis. iii, 30. Calmet, Com. Lit. I, i, 13. Astrue believed that this book of Moses was composed from twelve such documents.

Perhaps the best view may be, to hold, that there must have been these small annals, pedigrees and lessons, among the early patriarchs; and Moses had these before him, and wrote them out, and worked them up into his book of Genesis:-in doing which, he had Divine assistance, for "Iloly men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Compare with this, how we are referred, at 2 Sam. I., to the Elegy of David over Saul, being atso "written in the book of Jasher."

See also p. 50. That the Celta or KEATOι were synonimous with the Cymmerians is clear from Appian in Illyr. p. 1196, and de Bell. Civ. lib. i. 625. Diodorus Sic. lib. v. 309, also affirms the same. Herodotus says, the Celts dwelt in the most western parts beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Herod. Melpom. c. 49. McPherson affirms, that the name of Celtæ is an adjective derived from Gaël. Whitaker in his Refutation of McPherson asserts it is not an adjective derived from Gael but equally a substantive and actual

Gravesend. In accordance with their usual practice of nightly seeking a shelter upon land, these adventurous Celtæ disembarked and encamped upon the western heights. Pleased with the admirable position of the site the pure spring which freely welled forth-combined with the promise of other requisites their simple wants demanded-they adapted the spot for a permanent location; and excavating the sandy soil, formed for themselves dwellings. Once fixed, they rapidly multiplied, and their progeny spread into the neighbouring districts, where Nature reigned in dreary and undisturbed solitude.

The rigour of the northern climes, in which the lot of some tribes was cast, entailed the necessity of abodes, which should effectually be a protection from the severity of cold. Calling to our service analogical instances, aided by collateral evidence, and the examinations we have made, we feel convinced, that natural caves in the earth, from their warmth, were primarily adapted to this use, and when these became insufficient, artificial excavations were dug with rude flint instruments.

In the primitive stages of barbaric life, similar habitations appear to have been generally adopted. The first settlers in Egypt were a colony of Ethiopians and

ly the same word with it." p. 19. The C should be pronounced hard, it is then more consonant with the Greek orthography, and more truly expresses the proper pronunciation. The Romans called Cæsar Kæsar. Gibson's Camden. fol. 187. This subject is treated more fully in pages 49 and 50.

7 The authors of the Pictorial History of England, although they have laboured hard to deny the antiquity of the first settlement of Britain, are however finally compelled to admit much against their

were Troglodyte, or inhabitants of caves, pits or grottoes. The Horites who dwelt in Mount Seir, were Troglodyte, as the word imports. Strabo describes Troglodyte dwelling on each side of the Arabian Gulph. In the Koran, a tribe of Arabians is mentioned, (the tribe of Thamud,) "who hewed houses out of the mountains, to secure themselves." In the Bible, are many allusions to subterraneous residences, thus :-"Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains and caves, and strongholds." Judges, vi, 2. In these secure resorts they sought refuge in periods of distress; "When the men of Israel saw they were in a strait, then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in pits," &c. That the residences of the aborigines in this island were subterraneous,' we have repeated corroborative

inclination, "that the first migration from the one [Gaul?] to the other [Britain], took place at a very early period, most probably considerably more than a thousand years before the commencement of our era."

8 Alberti, fol. 1. a.

9 The Koran, ch. xv and xvi.

o 1 SAM. xiii, 6., and Hɛb. xi, 37—8. Vide also JER. xl, 9. 1 "On Friday morning, Nov. 21, 1845, the surface of the ground in The Paddock' at Orpington, Kent, suddenly gave way and developed, at the depth of sixteen feet, subterraneous arched chambers. The soil is sand. 'The Paddock' is a plot of ground devoted for the gardens of the peasantry, and the subsidence happened in that portion occupied by Master Willoughby. There is little doubt but that these caverns were the residences of the aboriginal Britons," "The formation of these pits may be ascribed to a tribe of Celta who had previously voyaged up the river Cray in wicker coracles. It must be recollected, that then, the river, unconfined by artificial barries, had no limits, but what nature herself provided, and consequently overflowed the whole of the valley between the hills, rendering it one vast morass, from the Thames to the source of the Cray. The

proofs furnished us by the authors of the classic era: amongst whom, we may incidentally enumerate Ephorus, Diodorus Siculus and Dion Cassius. The excavations in this county, consisted of three circular caverns, arranged equilaterally with a connecting passage about four feet high.3-The entrance with some times a chimney or vent, at extreme points.-The depth however varies--some we have examined at Stanhill and Stankey, (opposite parts of the great town belonging to Caswallon, which Cæsar stormed,) have been eight feet, twelve feet, fourteen feet and even twenty feet below the surface of the ground. Charcoal, bones, stone celts (and

water, although it covered so wide an expanse, was not deep, except where the current forced its way till it mingled with the rising and falling tides of Father Thames.' Its surface was covered with the green tops of myriads of aquatic plants and trees, willows, osiers, sallows and withies, amongst which the heron, the wild duck, the otter and the beaver dwelt undisturbed. On either side of the hills, even descending to the very verge of the valleys, extended dense forests, the magnitude of which can barely be conceived by the imagination of the modern inhabitants, in the depth of which roamed the wolf and wild boar." The Times, Sussex Herald, Gravesend Journal, &c. pas.

It

Ephorus was a pupil of Isocrates, who desired him to write a history, which he composed from the return of the Heraclidæ into the Peloponnesus to the twentieth year of Philip of Macedon. obtained him a brilliant reputation. His geography is often mentioned and criticised by Strabo. But he is extolled for his knowledge by Polybius, Diodorus, and Dionysius Halicarnassus. Sharon Turner i. 41.

3 In the Maidstone Journal, March 1845, is an account of a discovery by Mr. A. J. Dunkin, of similar excavations on the heights. immediately above Kit's Coty house, near Maidstone.

4 Hasted describes many similar pits in the heaths, fields and woods, near Crayford. He says that some of them, are ten, some

in one instance a flint arrow-head) have been discovered

fifteen, and others twenty fathoms deep. At the mouth, and thence downward, they are narrow, like the tunnel of a chimney, or passage of a well, but at the bottom they are large and of great compass, insomuch that some of them have several rooms or partitions, one within another, strongly vaulted and supported with pillars of chalk. Hist. Kent. fol. i. 211. In Gibson's Camden, there is a rude wood cut of some caverns near Tilbury, Essex, "spacious caverns in a chalky cliff, built very artificially of stone to the height of ten fathoms and somewhat straight at the top. A person who had been down to view them, gave me a description of them." The chambers in the caverns which Camden depicts, consist either of a large space, with semicircular recesses, or of two chambers, each with three semicircular recesses connected by a passage. The universality of the practice is shown in the caves which were discovered in Ireland, in 1829, which are described in the Transactions of the Antiquarian Society of London,' vol. xxiii. (Figs. 52, 53, and 54.) John Leland, who peregrinated England and Wales in the time of Henry VIII., and whose descriptions, whenever he enters into detail, are so curious that we sigh over his usual brevity, and wish that he were as prolix as the travellers of our own age-thus describes similar pits near Caernarvon : "there be a great number of pits made with hand large like a bowl at the head, and narrow in the bottom, overgrown in the swart with fine grass, and be scattered here and there about the quarters where the head of Kenner river is, that cometh by Caire Kenner. And some of these will receive a hundred men, some two hundred. They be in the Black Mountain." Old England, i. 22. The excavations at Pen Pits, near Bourton, in Somersetshire, appear to have been a town composed of these subterraneous dwellings. Of this curious relic of antiquity, Sir R. C. Hoare makes these observations: The extent of ground comprised within our plan, amounts to about seven hundred acres, of which, nearly half, have been brought into cultivation: but I have no doubt, but that the whole of this fine plain was originally excavated into pits. In my own time the southern declivity of the hill, and another large tract near it have been levelled, and a considerable allotment near Pen Lodge is now undergoing the same process. These excavations seem also to have extended along the eastern banks of the river