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bone, perforated, evidently to receive the cord which the harpoonist retained when the harpoon was flung. These characters can hardly be letters; and it has been suggested that the pebbles were used in some game in which the characters had a meaning. I think it more probable that they had a serious significance.

It has been said that alphabetiform characters inscribed on amulets are new and unheard of as relics of Early man. That this is not the case is proved by the fact that in the Museum at Edinburgh there is to be seen an amulet from a broch at Keiss, in Caithness, which is inscribed on both sides with characters that have been supposed to resemble runes, but no Runic scholar has been able to decipher them. The genuineness of this amulet is undisputed.

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F the early history of Chislehurst Manor we have but slight information.' There is in existence a charter of King Eadgar, dated 974, which contains a reference to "the King's boundary that is in Cyselhurst," and implies that the Chislehurst manorial lands were at that time in the hands of King Eadgar. King Edward the Confessor held the manor, and the Domesday Commissioners state that it was then (in 1086) still terra regis, and in the possession of King William. It was held directly by Kings Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II.

From the Plantagenets it passed to the house of Beaufort, and later to that of Neville, the reversion being held at the latter end of the fifteenth century by Henry VII. In 1611, James I sold the reversion to

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1 There was a settlement in the Cray Valley, A.D. 862, in which year King Æthelbert granted ten carucates of land in Bromleah to his minister Dryghtwald, one of the boundaries being, "then from the Swallow, the Cray settlers dwelling, to the gibbet mark."

This Swallow, also known as "Swellinde Pette," is mentioned in later deeds, and is referred to by the late Mr. R. B. Latter in Archæologia Cantiana, vol. 1, p. 141.

There can be little doubt that this Swallow is identical with the great natural hollow in Denbridge Wood, which, commencing at the Common, ran through the dene above the caves, and near to the present entrance to them, and at intervals discharged its flood waters into the more remote galleries, where, at certain points, the water has, at times, risen to 4 ft. above the flooring.

George and Thomas Whitmore, of London, who in the same year sold the property to the fourth Sir Thomas Walsingham, of Scadbury, "to be held of our Lord the King by fealty alone in free and common socage.

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About the time of the Restoration, Sir Thomas's son and successor, the fifth Sir Thomas Walsingham, sold Chislehurst, together with the manor of Scadbury, to Sir Richard Bettenson, from whom it has descended to the Townshend family, and so to the present owner, the Hon. Robert Marsham-Townshend, nephew of the late Earl Sidney.1

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There is little doubt that Wellwood" and "Denbridge Wood" originally formed a portion of this manor, and that the boundary line was the Kyd Brook, which now divides the parish from Bromley; but this portion at the commencement of the nineteenth century came into the possession of a Mr. Baskcomb, whose descendants sold it about the year 1870, and the property has since been covered with cottages and villa residences, excepting some few acres of woodland held by the trustees of the late Mr. George Wythes, who purchased them about the same time as he obtained the adjoining property, Bickley Park.

The modern entrance to the Chislehurst Caves is in this piece of woodland; but the galleries extend long distances under the hill and Common, access to the remote parts being cut off, except at one point, by the falling in of the excavations, or by their filling-in during the course of road-making and building operations on the surface. Mr. Baskcomb had an entrance to the middle series of galleries by a slope drift from his garden, constructed at considerable cost: this entrance still exists, but is now blocked up. His property boundary was also defined by a brick walling, which may be seen in the caves at the present time; but a doorway has recently been inserted, which gives access to the older galleries.

Since my first Paper on these caves appeared in print,

1 Webb.

2 Kyd Brook, a corruption of Ked, or Ceridwen, the Arkite goddess or Ceres of the Britons. Running streams were the objects of superstitious reverence among the Celtic races, and this stream ran through the centre of the ancient camp, alluded to in a former Paper.

a further study of them has been made, together with a survey by experienced mining engineers (see accompanying Plan); and the results go a long way towards proving that these chalk galleries have been the work of successive ages. The earliest are those which, by way of distinction from the outer and inner series of workings, are now known as the middle series; and as these are immediately connected with the dene-holes, they are doubtless of Celtic origin, and bear the impress of a people well advanced in art. That they are not merely galleries formed for the purpose of obtaining chalk and flints must be apparent to any visitor who will devote a few minutes to their examination; they are regularly formed, symmetrical, and in many places very beautiful in their curved and well-proportioned outlines. finishing work, too, has been executed with a due regard to evenness, particularly in the dressing of the lower walling, which has been done with a finely-pointed wrought-iron pick, with a slightly curved angular blade. Age, too, has improved them by removing the asperities; or, in other words, Old Father Time has planed down the irregularities, leaving the surface softened to the eye, so that at the distance of a few yards it appears not unlike marble. It is noticeable that in a few places-not many -flints project from the walls; but these have only been left where it would have been difficult to break or remove them without defacing the general regularity of the work.

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The width of these galleries varies, but may be taken as 9 ft., narrowing so considerably towards the roof as to give them the appearance of an arcade; there is, however, a roofing of some 3 ft., formed by the under-side of a horizontal stratum of chalk, which is fairly regular throughout. The flooring is remarkably level: it is of chalk-breccia, without any admixture, and might be natural or artificial, but is probably the latter: the small chalk of excavation making a soft macadam easily levelled, and remaining true in the absence of much use of the caves, whilst equally absorbent of flood-waters with the solid chalk. There would be a grouting of sand superadded from time to time through the dene-holes, and

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