orn--Pottery--Mill-stones--Villages--Cattle--Pastoral tribes--Savage
tribes--Cannibalism--Polyandry--Beasts of chase--Forest trees--British
clothing and arms--Sussex iron.

E. 1.--The trustworthiness of Pytheas is further confirmed by the
astronomical observations which he records. He notices, for example,
that the longest day in Britain contains "nineteen equinoctial hours."
Amongst the ancients, it must be remembered, an "hour," in common
parlance, signified merely the twelfth part, on any given day, of
the time between sunrise and sunset, and thus varied according to
the season. But the standard hour for astronomical purposes was the
twelfth part of the equinoctial day, when the sun rises 6 a.m. and
sets 6 p.m., and therefore corresponded with our own. Now the longest
day at Greenwich is actually not quite seventeen hours, but in the
north of Britain it comes near enough to the assertion of Pytheas to
bear out his tale. We are therefore justified in giving credence
to his account of what he saw in our country, the earliest that we
possess. He tells us that, in some parts at least, the inhabitants
were far from being mere savages. They were corn-growers (wheat,
barley, and millet being amongst their crops), and also cultivated
"roots," fruit trees, and other vegetables. What specially struck him
was that, "for lack of clear sunshine[22]," they threshed out their
corn, not in open threshing-floors, as in Mediterranean lands, but in
barns.

E. 2.--From other sources we know that these old British farmers were
sufficiently scientific agriculturalists to have invented _wheeled_
ploughs,[23] and to use a variety of manures; various kinds of
mast, loam, and chalk in particular. This treatment of the soil was,
according to Pliny, a British invention[24] (though the Greeks of
Megara had also tried it), and he thinks it worth his while to give
a long description of the different clays in use and the methods of
their application. That most generally employed was chalk dug out from
pits some hundred feet in depth, narrow at the mouth, but widening
towards the bottom. [_Petitur ex alto, in centenos pedes actis
plerumque puteis, ore angustatis; intus spatiante vena_.]

E. 3.--Here we have an exact picture of those mysterious excavations
some of which still survive to puzzle antiquaries under the name of
_Dene Holes_. They are found in various localities; Kent, Surrey, and
Essex being the richest. In Hangman's Wood, near Grays,