England, mainly
in the metropolitan borough of Lewisham. This high-lying tract was
crossed by the Roman Watling Street from Kent, on a line approximating
to that of the modern Shooter's Hill; and was a rallying ground of Wat
Tyler (1381), of Jack Cade (1450), and of Audley, leader of the Cornish
rebels, defeated and captured here by the troops of Henry VII. in 1497.
It also witnessed the acclamations of the citizens of London on the
return of Henry V. from the victory of Agincourt, the formal meeting
between Henry VIII. and Anne of Cleves, and that between the army of
the restoration and Charles II. The introduction into England of the
game of golf is traditionally placed here in 1608, and attributed to
King James I. and his Scottish followers. The common, the area of which
is 267 acres, is still used for this and other pastimes. For the
residential district to which Blackheath gives name, see LEWISHAM.

BLACK HILLS, an isolated group of mountains, covering an area of about
6000 sq. m. in the adjoining corners of South Dakota and Wyoming, U.S.A.
They rise on an average some 2000 ft. above their base, the highest
peak, Harney, having an altitude above the sea of 7216 ft. They are
drained and in large part enclosed by the North (or Belle Fourche) and
South forks of the Cheyenne river (at whose junction a fur-trading post
was established about 1830); and are surrounded by semi-arid, alkaline
plains lying 3000 to 3500 ft. above the sea. The mass has an elliptical
shape, its long axis, which extends nearly N.N.W.-S.S.E., being about
120 m. and its shorter axis about 40 m. long. The hills are formed by a
short, broad, anticlinal fold, which is flat or nearly so on its summit.
From this fold the stratified beds have in large part been removed, the
more recent having been almost entirely eroded from the elevated mass.
The edges of these are now found encircling the mountains and forming a
series of fairly continuous rims of hog-backs. The carboniferous and
older stratified beds still cover the west half of the hills, while from
the east half they have been removed, exposing the granite. Scientific
exploration began in 1849, and systematic geological investigation about
1875. Rich gold placers had already been discovered, and in 1875 the
Sioux Indians within whose territory the hills had until then been
included, were removed, and the lands were open to white settlers.
Subsequently low-grade quartz mines were found and dev