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 Another Random Document on
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under the lee of St. Michael’s Mount. The comparative barbarism of
the people of Cornwall is irrelevant: as they wanted to sell their tin,
there was no danger that they would molest their customers.
Besides, Mr. Reid seems to forget that the people who produced the
tin delivered it to the traders at Ictis. The traders transacted
business directly with them; and, assuming that Ictis was the Isle of
Wight, they were as barbarous when they had crossed the limestone
causeway as they had been when they left the tin mines. Mr. Reid’s
argument compels him once more to throw overboard the ancient
authority, who, as he insists, ‘can be literally depended on’; for
Diodorus distinctly states that the tin-mining inhabitants of Belerium
were friendly to strangers, and from their intercourse with foreign
merchants had become comparatively civilized.2378 This passage
proves that, according to Diodorus, Ictis was in the territory of
Belerium, and by itself demolishes Mr. Reid’s theory. For how could
the inhabitants have become civilized by their commercial dealings if
the merchants never came near Belerium, and the only inhabitants
who came in contact with them were wagoners or boatmen?

It is clear then that the case for the Isle of Wight rests upon the
geological evidence, such as it is, that at the time when Ictis was a
trading station, St. Michael’s Mount was ‘an isolated rock rising out
of a swampy wood’. Common sense and the historical evidence are
all on the other side. If St. Michael’s Mount had not been available,
there would have been nothing to prevent the traders from shipping
the tin at Falmouth or in Plymouth Sound; and acceptance of Mr.
Reid’s theory involves, besides other insuperable difficulties, the
assumption that the tin-merchants were ignorant of the first
principles of business.

III. We now come to the question, When did the overland trade in
tin between Corbilo and Massilia begin, and how long did it last?
That it existed before the time of Pytheas—that is to say, at least as
early as the fourth century before Christ—is certain;2379 for, as we
have seen, Pliny and Diodorus Siculus derived their information
about Ictis ultimately from him.2380 Müllenhoff,2381 indeed, contends
for a still earlier date. Only on this hypothesis, he argues, can we
explain the remarkable fact that the great Celtic immigration at the
beginning of the fourth century B.C. not only did no harm to Massilia
but actually increased its prosperity, the profits of the trade being
appreciated by the Celts themselves. Still, there is no evidence that
it existed (except in the form of intertribal barter) before the
foundation of Massilia, or even that it had begun long before
Pytheas visited Britain.

Professor Ridgeway insists that it is ‘obvious that when the Belgic

tribes ... made permanent settlements on the south-east coast of
Britain, the course of trade would pass regularly from Kent into
Northern France, and that the old route by Armorica, Corbilo, and
the Loire would fall into disuse’.2382 If anything is ‘obvious’, it is that
the course of trade would continue to follow the most convenient
route, and that merchants would not saddle themselves with the
expense of conveying tin, destined for Mediterranean markets, all
the way from Cornwall to Kent. Besides, how was it to be conveyed
thither? Certainly not by land; for Professor Ridgeway tells us himself
that the barrier interposed by the great forest of Anderida would
have rendered this impossible.2383 Certainly not by sea; for, unless
the merchants had taken leave of their senses, why should they
have paid for the voyage from Cornwall to Kent, then for the voyage
from Kent to Boulogne, and then for the long overland journey to
Marseilles, when, by taking the route which led from St. Michael’s
Mount to the mouth of the Loire, both the voyage and the land
journey would have been considerably shortened? If Caesar does
not expressly mention Corbilo, neither does he expressly mention
any other commercial port; and he does imply that the Veneti had
the lion’s share of the carrying trade with Britain.2384 Possibly
Corbilo had lost its importance by the time of Caesar; but the
estuary of the Loire still formed one of the two most important
harbours in the west of Gaul, and Strabo mentions it as one of the
four principal Gallic ports from which ships bound for Britain set
sail.2385 The argument based upon the fact that the overland
journey lasted thirty days implies that the merchants would have
deliberately preferred a longer to a shorter route; and as the
distance from the mouth of the Loire to Massilia was about four
hundred and eighty miles in a straight line, it does not seem
incredible that the journey should have lasted thirty days. But what
puzzles me most in Professor Ridgeway’s argument is that, while it is
partly based upon the testimony of Diodorus, it sets that testimony
at defiance. The professor holds that the authority whom Diodorus
followed was Posidonius. If so, Posidonius stated that in his time
British tin was shipped for the Continent at Ictis. Now Professor
Ridgeway identifies Ictis with the Isle of Wight. I have shown that
Ictis was St. Michael’s Mount. But, according to Professor Ridgeway,
British tin was shipped, in the time of Posidonius, neither at the Isle
of Wight, nor at St. Michael’s Mount, but in Kent.2386 The train of
thought which led to this conclusion is one which my poor brain is
powerless to follow.2387

Professor Haverfield2388 affirms that the Roman annexation of Gallia

Narbonensis ‘secured that trade route by which Diodorus Siculus tells
us that British tin reached the Mediterranean, that is the route from
Narbo by the “pass of Carcassonne” and Toulouse to Bordeaux’; but
I cannot find any evidence that this was the route to which Diodorus
referred.

Professor Rhys2389 has constructed a theory about the course of the

tin trade during the maritime supremacy of the Veneti which is even
more remarkable than that of Professor Ridgeway. He tells us that
‘at one time they probably landed British tin at the mouth of [the
Loire] ... and they fetched some of it at any rate from the south-east
of Britain’. In other words, the tin was conveyed at heavy cost by the
Britons three hundred miles from Cornwall to the south-east of
Britain, in order that the Veneti might add at least two hundred miles
to the voyage which they would have undertaken if they had fetched
it direct from Cornwall; and this was done although, as Professor
Rhys himself assures us, there was ‘communication between the
Dumnonii [of Cornwall] and the nearest part of Gaul during the
Venetic period’. The professor adds that ‘whatever direct trade in tin
there may have been between the tin districts of Britain and the
Loire, it must have been utterly unknown to Caesar’. I reply that if,
as Professor Rhys holds, there was trade in tin by way of South-
Eastern Britain between the tin districts of Britain and the Loire, this
trade also must, on Professor Rhys’s theory, have been unknown to
Caesar, for he mentions neither the one nor the other; but that the
voyage which Crassus made to the tin-producing districts of
Cornwall, and about which Caesar is equally silent, shows that
Caesar was not ignorant, but merely reticent.

But Professor Ridgeway would assign a different reason for Caesar’s

silence. Remarking that ‘when Strabo, writing as a contemporary, is
describing the exports from Britain, he omits the mention of tin,
whilst from the extract from Posidonius, quoted alike by him and
Diodorus, it is plain that when the Stoic explorer visited North-
Western Europe, the British tin trade was still of importance’, the
professor suggests that in the time of Caesar Britain ceased to
export tin.2390 But did not Strabo write long after Caesar died?
Professor Haverfield, on the other hand, has given reasons for the
view that ‘the early Cornish tin trade, which Posidonius and Caesar
knew, died out about the beginning of our era’; and he suggests that
it may have done so because the Romans had just discovered ‘the
real site of the Cassiterides in N. W. Spain’.2391 ‘Very little,’ he
remarks, ‘has been found west of Exeter which can be connected
with the first two centuries of the Roman Empire.... Plainly the
Romans of the conquest period did not care to advance beyond
Exeter.... Yet if the tin trade had then been flourishing they would
hardly have stopped. We must put the halt at Exeter beside the
silence of the writers after Caesar, and suppose that for some reason
the tin trade had ceased in Cornwall. Perhaps as iron took the place
of bronze in many lands tin was no longer in such demand; perhaps
the Spanish ore was cheaper than the Cornish; perhaps the
accessible Cornish tin streams seemed exhausted. Whatever the
reason, the Cornish tin trade vanished before A.D. 50. It reappears
two centuries later.’2392
Now the evidence that Professor Haverfield offers of its having
reappeared is simply the discovery of one inscribed ingot of Cornish
tin, which belonged to the fourth century; and if no inscribed ingots
of an earlier date have been found, their absence hardly proves that
the Romans had not worked the mines before. This Professor
Haverfield admits; but, he insists, ‘it does prove that we have no
right to say that mining was going on.’2393 Possibly: but if so, the
absence of inscribed ingots of tin in Spain2394 equally proves that we
have no right to say that mining was going on there. Yet, if it was
suspended in Cornwall, it must have been contemporaneously active
in Spain. It is true that no Roman antiquities of earlier date than the
third century have been found in Cornwall, except some Samian
ware and coins of Trajan and Vespasian;2395 and it may be true that,
as the professor says, these discoveries ‘prove no Roman influence
or occupation’:2396 but, on the other hand, Cornwall has very few
Roman antiquities even of the third and fourth centuries,2397 and no
Roman or Romanized towns or villas.2398 Is it not then possible that,
as Professor Gowland suggests, the mines were worked throughout
the whole period of the Roman occupation of Britain, but not under
Roman control?2399 He points out that ‘the stamps had been
impressed [upon the solitary ingot] when the metal was cold, and
hence not necessarily at the mine, but very probably by a Roman
trader or officer at the coast’.2400 Professor Haverfield indeed states
that the ingot was found not more than a mile and a half from ‘an
old working’, which has yielded Roman coins:2401 but Professor
Gowland supports his own view by the argument that ‘at the Roman
lead mines in Britain the inscriptions were always cast on the ingots
of lead when they were made, and at the copper mines were
stamped on the cakes of copper while they were red hot’. ‘The real
site of the Cassiterides’ was not, as Professor Haverfield thinks, ‘in N.
W. Spain,’ but in the British Isles. ‘The silence of the writers after
Caesar’ in regard to the British trade in tin, on which he lays stress,
really resolves itself into the silence of Strabo; for although the
professor is quite right in saying that ‘later authors [namely,
Diodorus, Strabo, and Pliny] merely include it in quotations from
earlier literature’, those who are familiar with their writings will admit
that there was no reason why any of them, except Strabo, should
have expressly added to those quotations the information that the
British tin trade continued in their own time. We should certainly
have expected that Strabo would have included tin in his list of
British exports if it had been exported in his time; and I will not
attempt to explain away his silence: but can it outweigh the extreme
improbability that for two centuries the civilized world should have
been entirely cut off from one of the two sources from which its
supply of tin had previously been derived? And when Professor
Haverfield suggests that ‘as iron took the place of bronze in many
lands, tin was no longer in such demand’, does he not momentarily
forget that not only in the lands round the Mediterranean but also in
those of Northern and Western Europe iron had taken the place of
bronze for many purposes several centuries before the Christian era,
and that, on the other hand, those implements and ornaments which
were still made wholly or in part of bronze were probably in greater
demand than before?

IV. We have now to deal with the Phoenicians. Sir George Cornewall
Lewis2402 and various other writers have endeavoured to prove that
the Phoenicians (including the Carthaginians) never traded directly
with Britain for tin; and in 1896 Dr. Arthur Evans remarked that ‘the
days are gone past when it could be seriously maintained that the
Phoenician merchant landed on the coast of Cornwall’.2403

Now Dr. Evans’s distinguished father, who holds that the Cassiterides
‘are rightly identified with Britain’, observes that ‘the traces of
Phoenician influence in this country are ... at present imperceptible.
But,’ he continues, ‘it may well be that their system of commerce or
barter was such as intentionally left the barbarian tribes with whom
they traded in much the same stage of civilization as that in which
they found them, always assuming that they dealt directly with
Britain and not through the intervention of Gaulish merchants.’2404

Some merchants certainly landed, if not on the coast of Cornwall at

all events on that of Ictis: is there any reason in the nature of things
why Phoenician merchants should not have done so? To the old-
fashioned view there are only two objections worth considering,
namely, first, that ‘the tin trade was carried on overland through
Gaul’,2405 and, secondly, that the tin which was shipped to Gades
may have come not from Britain but from the mines of North-
Western Spain. But, as we have seen, there is no evidence that the
overland trade had begun before 600 B.C.,—the approximate date of
the foundation of Massilia; nor is there any evidence that the
Phoenicians took part in it. From Gades to Cornwall the voyage, as
George Smith observes, was shorter than the voyages ‘from Tyre to
Malta, Carthage, or Sicily, which they were performing
continuously’.2406 If Desjardins2407 is right in affirming that ‘the
name Corbilo unquestionably looks Phoenician’, and that a
Phoenician inscription has been found near Guérande, it may be
inferred that the carrying trade between Britain and Corbilo was at
one time either wholly or partly in Phoenician or Carthaginian hands.
That tin was obtained in ancient times from the mines of North-
Western Spain must be admitted: not only is the fact attested by the
statements of Strabo and Pliny,2408 but it has been proved by the
researches of Mr. W. C. Borlase.2409 But there is some evidence that
tin also came from Cornwall to Gades. Festus Avienus2410 tells us,
ultimately, it may be assumed, on the authority of the Carthaginian
traveller, Himilco, that both the Carthaginians and the people of
Gades used to sail to the British seas.2411 Sir George Cornewall
Lewis,2412 indeed, argues that ‘if the date of the voyages of Hanno
and Himilco is correctly fixed, it follows that at a period subsequent
to the expedition of Xerxes, the Carthaginians ... had not carried
their navigation far along the coasts of the Atlantic; and that they
sent out two voyages of discovery—one to the south, the other to
the north—at the public expense’. All that we know about the date of
Himilco’s voyage is that it was not later than the fifth, probably in
the sixth century B. C.,2413 and, according to Pliny,2414 its object
was ‘to explore the outer parts of Europe’. Anyhow the evidence
remains that after Himilco’s time, if not before, the Carthaginians
traded by sea with Britain.2415 Dr. Arthur Evans, I know, warns us
that ‘a truer view of primitive trade as passing on by inter-tribal
barter has superseded the idea of a direct commerce between
remote localities’.2416 But the testimony of Diodorus, that is to say of
Pytheas, proves that traders purchased tin off the Cornish coast from
the natives who had prepared it for market, carried it across the
Channel, and unloaded it on the coast of Gaul, whence it was
conveyed overland to the mouth of the Rhône. If this was not ‘direct
commerce’, what was? That there was ‘inter-tribal barter’ in ancient
times, no well-informed person would deny; but that there was also
‘direct commerce between remote localities’ is as well attested as
any fact of ancient history can be.

Mr. C. T. Newton indeed argues that ‘if the Phoenicians frequented

any portion of the British coast, it is probable that they would have
given names to the more important harbours and promontories, as
they did in Africa and Spain’.2417 But is it not also probable that they
found it sufficient to hold, or even to occupy temporarily, as occasion
required, one or more of the Scilly Islands, or perhaps St. Michael’s
Mount, and that they may have given names to these places,
although the names have not survived.2418 Their settlements in
Africa and Spain were not temporary but permanent.

I freely admit that the testimony of Festus Avienus is not conclusive;

but I see no reason for rejecting the statement of Strabo that the
Phoenicians traded directly for tin with the Cassiterides—that is to
say, the British Isles—and that they originally monopolized the trade.

M. Salomon Reinach,2419 who supports the view that the

Phoenicians traded directly with Cornwall, insists, referring to a well-
known passage in Thucydides,2420 that the overland route must
have been earlier than the maritime. ‘Corinth,’ says Thucydides,
‘being seated on an isthmus, was naturally from the first a centre of
commerce; for the Hellenes within and without the Peloponnese, in
the old days when they communicated chiefly by land, had to pass
through her territory in order to reach one another.’2421 M. Reinach
argues that ‘nothing could have suggested to the Phoenicians the
idea of going with their ships in search of tin if they had not already
known the existence not only of the metal but also of the distant
country which produced it ... the Phoenicians of Spain no more
discovered the Cassiterides and tin than the Portuguese discovered
India and spices’. This may be freely admitted. But the Phoenicians
may well have acquired the knowledge upon which they acted long
before the direct overland trade which Diodorus describes began. Tin
was probably conveyed in very early times from Cornwall to Gaul for
the use of tribes who inhabited that country before the immigration
of the Celtic-speaking invaders; and, since Gaul was in
communication with Britain from the beginning of the Bronze
Age,2422 the knowledge that tin was to be obtained in Britain might
have reached Phoenician ears even before Gades was founded.

But the most striking contribution which M. Reinach has made to the
literature of this subject is the suggestion that the traders who first
sailed from the Mediterranean into the English Channel were not
Phoenicians but Phrygians. Speaking of the well-known passage,
which I have already quoted, in which Pliny says that Midacritus was
the first who imported tin from ‘the tin island’,2423 he argues that
the generally accepted identification of Midacritus with the
Phoenician Melcarth is erroneous. He points out that in Pliny’s list of
discoverers all except the most famous names are accompanied by a
complementary designation, for example (Toxius), Caeli filius2424.
Therefore, even if, as has been supposed, what Pliny wrote was not
Midacritus but Melicertus (Melcarth), that unfamiliar name would
have been followed by some explanatory addition. M. Reinach then
quotes two passages from Hyginus2425 and Cassiodorus2426
respectively. In the former we read that ‘King Midas, the Phrygian,
son of Cybele, was the first to discover lead and tin’ (Midas rex
Cybeles filius Phryx plumbum album et nigrum primus invenit); in
the latter, that ‘Midas, the ruler of Phrygia, discovered tin’ ([Aes enim
Ionos Thessaliae rex], plumbum Midas regnator Phrygiae
reppererunt). It is clear then, says M. Reinach, that, as the Jesuit
scholar, Hardouin, perceived more than two centuries ago, for
Midacritus in the MSS. of Pliny we ought to read Midas Phryx. He
adds that from a fragment of the Seventh Book of Diodorus,
preserved in the Chronicle of Eusebius, we learn that the maritime
supremacy of the Phrygians began about 903 B.C., and that of the
Phoenicians in 824.2427
 DENE-HOLES
Of the various theories which have been published as to the object
of dene-holes three only are worth considering, namely, that they
were granaries; that they were refuges; and that they were sunk in
order to obtain chalk.

Subterranean granaries have of course been used in many

countries;2428 but it is said that no grain has ever been found in any
dene-hole,2429 whereas grain has been found in shallow pits and on
numerous other prehistoric sites in Britain.2430 On the other hand, a
thorough exploration of the famous group of dene-holes in
Hangman’s Wood, Essex, revealed fragments of two millstones.2431
The Reverend E. H. Goddard remarks that ‘very similar places’ in
Brittany were used by ‘the peasant armies during the war in La
Vendée’ as refuges and lairs, and argues that dene-holes served a
similar purpose.2432 Perhaps, though it would have gone hard with
the fugitives if their lairs had been discovered; but, seeing that
strongholds were available, it is difficult to admit that they were dug
with that object. The theory that they were shafts sunk for the
extraction of chalk rests mainly upon the evidence of Pliny, who
states that chalk was obtained in Britain for manure ‘by means of
pits sunk like wells with narrow mouths to the depth commonly of
one hundred feet, where they branch out like the veins of mines’
([creta] petitur ex alto, in centenos actis plerumque puteis, ore
angustis, intus ut in metallis spatiante vena2433). Messrs. T. V.
Holmes and W. Cole, who superintended the exploration of the
dene-holes in Hangman’s Wood, argue that ‘the above account could
not have been given to Pliny by any man who had ever descended
into one of our [Essex] ... dene-holes, which are entered by ...
narrow shafts, but whose lofty symmetrical chambers cannot be
described as “branching out like the veins of mines”.’2434 I think, on
the contrary, that, allowing for the natural inaccuracy of a writer who
gave his own version of information supplied by one who had
perhaps himself not descended into a dene-hole, Pliny’s description
was remarkably correct: the chambers which open out at the bottom
of the shafts in Hangman’s Wood are arranged in the shape of a
star-fish; the only material error with which Pliny can be charged is
that he compared them to the veins of mines; and that he was
alluding to them I have no doubt. Messrs. Holmes and Cole are,
however, on firm ground when they point out that his informant may
have wrongly assumed that the shafts were sunk in order to obtain
chalk because the chalk that was extracted from them was utilized.
‘And,’ they continue, ‘a foreigner accidentally discovering secret pits
—and our surface trenches showed our dene-holes to have been
secret excavations—would almost necessarily be deceived as to their
use by natives.’ But is it not possible that Pliny’s informant may have
been a Briton? And, assuming that he was deceived as to the
purpose of the dene-holes, why was he allowed to learn the
existence and arrangement of the chambers, and, approximately, the
depth of the shaft?

Nevertheless, Messrs. Holmes and Cole are undoubtedly right in the

main. It has been argued that dene-holes are situated in places
which must always have been uncultivated, whereas the tracts in
which chalk lay near the surface may have been already occupied;
that chalk has been obtained in Wiltshire in modern times by mining
although it was to be had near the surface; and that the labour of
sinking the shafts may have been compensated by saving the cost of
transporting chalk from distant parts, where it was the surface
rock.2435 But, as Messrs. Holmes and Cole observe, ‘there is plenty
of bare chalk within a mile’ of Hangman’s Wood; and, as they
pertinently ask, if the dene-holes were sunk for chalk, why was their
position so carefully kept secret?2436 Again, Mr. Spurrell, who admits
that where chalk lay very deep shafts may have been sunk merely in
order to obtain it, remarks that ‘it is evident that where the land is
white with chalk the pits of great depth so often found there could
not have been dug for manure, and the natives of Kent in such
situations scout the idea as absurd’.2437 Messrs. T. E. and R. H.
Forster contend that the elaborate design of the chambers in
Hangman’s Wood is ‘in reality a strong confirmation’ of the truth of
‘the chalk-quarry theory’; for ‘the star-fish-shaped pit ... enables the
miner to win more chalk at one sinking; and if no examples of it
were known, it would be necessary to postulate its existence in
order to supply the missing link between the primitive bell-pit and
the pillared and galleried mine of the kind seen at Chislehurst’.2438
But is the ‘bell-pit’ primitive, and is there a link, missing or
otherwise? Anyhow it is incredible that the people of Essex, if they
had undertaken the prodigious labour of sinking 70 shafts simply in
order to obtain better chalk than what they could have found hard
by at the surface, would have contented themselves, after boring
through 60 feet of sand and gravel, with ‘the very uppermost [and
therefore worst] chalk’.2439 As Mr. Holmes remarks,2440 ‘it must be
obvious that the course which would commend itself to all seekers
after superior chalk would be to begin operations where chalk is at
the surface, make a shaft 10 to 20 feet deep, and procure chalk
lying at that depth’; and, while he freely admits that ‘a farmer might
naturally prefer to get chalk at a depth of 60 to 80 feet on his own
land rather than ... from some one else’s pit a mile or two away’, he
emphasizes the absurdity of supposing that ‘any people ...
concentrated their pits where they got the least return for their
labour, and where there was no counterbalancing advantage ... as
they must have done at Hangman’s Wood and Bexley on the Chalk-
pit hypothesis’.2441

Charred wood, bones of animals, and large quantities of coarse

pottery have been found in a dene-hole near Dunstable,2442 which is
sufficient evidence that some dene-holes were occasionally
inhabited.

I conclude that dene-holes were intended to serve as granaries; that

they may have been used occasionally as places of concealment;
and that the chalk which was taken out of them was used, if it was
wanted, for manure. It is significant that their name means ‘Dane-
holes’, that is, hiding-places from the Danes.2443

The ‘bell-pits’ which have been already mentioned, and which are
sometimes confounded with dene-holes, were undoubtedly made for
the sake of the chalk; and, unlike dene-holes, they were made broad
in order that a large amount of material might be taken out of them
at each haul.2444

Some of the Kentish dene-holes, if Mr. Goddard is rightly informed,

contained bronze implements;2445 and those of Essex are almost
certainly post-neolithic.2446 Some bell-pits are ancient, but I doubt
whether it could be proved that any were pre-Roman: Pitt-Rivers2447
indeed believed that it was from the Romans that the Britons learned
to use chalk as top-dressing.
 THE COAST BETWEEN CALAIS AND
THE SOMME IN THE TIME OF
CAESAR
The question of the period during which the gulf of St. Omer existed
has given rise to much discussion. According to Reclus,2448
Desjardins,2449 and many other writers,2450 even in the time of
Caesar this so-called gulf, which was really a shallow salt-water
‘mere’, covered the lowlands north-east of the hills of Artois between
Sangatte and Dunkirk, and extended inland to within a short
distance of St. Omer. No evidence, however, has been adduced to
show that it existed at that time;2451 and it has been proved by M.
J. Gosselet that it did not exist before the latter part of the third
century of our era, for Gallo-Roman remains, including 2,354 coins,
some of which belong to the time of Postumus, have been found in
the area. As M. Gosselet says,2452 the Sinus Itius is a mere invention
of writers of the seventeenth century.

The ancient topography of Wissant, of the estuary of the Liane, and

of the headlands of Blancnez, Grisnez, and Alprech, is discussed in
the article on the Portus Itius.2453

The inland extension of the bay formed by the estuary of the Canche
has steadily diminished since the time of Caesar; and whereas,
during the last century at all events, the headland on its southern
side has gained considerably on the sea, the ‘Pointe de Lornel’ on
the north and the neighbouring sand-dunes have suffered continual
erosion.2454
The country which lies between the hills of Artois and the sea, from
the mouth of the Canche to the mouth of the Somme, is, as
Reclus2455 remarks, of recent formation; and, as late as the ninth
century, the environs of the town of Rue, which is now about six
miles from the sea, were covered by a vast shallow lake, 20,000
hectares, or about 78 square miles, in extent.
 THE CONFIGURATION OF THE
COAST OF KENT IN THE TIME OF
CAESAR
This volume is not a treatise upon the physical geography of Ancient
Britain; and I am only concerned with geographical questions in so
far as they are essential to a right understanding of the history. It is
impossible to understand the narrative of Caesar’s invasions of
Britain without considering how far the physical geography of that
part of the island which was the theatre of his operations differed
from what it is now.

I. BETWEEN RAMSGATE AND SANDOWN

CASTLE
Thanet, as everybody knows, was an island in Caesar’s time; and
Bede2456 says that it was separated from the mainland by an
estuary three furlongs broad: but the late George Dowker2457
concluded from ‘an attentive examination of the estuary’ that it was
‘much shallower and narrower than is generally supposed’.

John Lewis,2458 a well-known antiquary of the eighteenth century,

and William Boys,2459 the historian of Sandwich, maintained that an
estuary, in which was included the harbour of Richborough, known
to the Romans as Portus Ritupis, had extended from the cliffs of
Ramsgate southward to Walmer, covering the sites of Stonar and
Sandwich and indeed the whole of the low ground between
Sandwich and Deal, and washing the shore of an island on which
stood Richborough Castle. A recent writer, Mr. H. Sharpe,2460 who
endorses this opinion, argues that the Roman road from Canterbury
to Richborough harbour (ad portum Ritupis2461) terminated at Each
End. The road ‘cannot’, he insists, ‘have run to Sandwich in Roman
times. Montagu Burrows ... Cinque Ports, 1888, p. 30,2462 says
—“Sandwich and Stonar are wholly English. No Roman remains have
been found at either” ... there is good reason to suppose that the
land upon which it [Sandwich] stands and the land over which the
Sandwich end of the road runs were not formed when the Romans
were here.’2463 And again, ‘There is another reason for supposing
that Each End was ... the place where the boats left the mainland for
the island [of Richborough]. [The road running northward from
Dover] is marked on the Ordnance map2464 as a Roman road, and if
complete would run to Each End, not to Richborough Castle or to
Sandwich ... the last mile from [Woodnesborough] to Each End, is
missing.’2465

Now, in regard to Stonar, Professor Burrows, as we shall presently

see, is mistaken; and, granting that the Roman road from Dover
would, if complete, run to Each End, how can Mr. Sharpe prove that
it did not run further? The late George Dowker stated, in a paper
which was published after his death, that he had himself ‘traced the
Roman road to Woodnesborough, and thence by Each End to near
the Richborough Island’;2466 and the views of Lewis and Boys, which
Mr. Sharpe endorses, as to the wide extent of the estuary at the time
of the Roman conquest of Britain have been stultified by discoveries
to which Mr. Sharpe does not allude. Roach Smith affirms that
‘Roman remains, indicative of habitations, have been discovered in
the sand-hills considerably to the north of Sandown Castle’, and that
‘coins have been found at Stonar, opposite to Richborough’; and
from these facts he infers that ‘the recession of the sea from the low
land between Thanet and Walmer probably commenced at a period
much earlier than has been commonly supposed’.2467
That the hill on which Richborough Castle stood was nearly if not
quite insulated is generally admitted;2468 but Mr. George E. Fox
remarks that it ‘was probably not washed by the open sea, though a
broad channel may have flowed close beside it, forming one of the
southern mouths of the strait, while a narrow strip of salt-marsh and
sand-bank lay between it and the open sea’. It would be more
correct to say that the island, on its eastern side, was separated by a
channel from Stonar Beach, the southern extremity of which lay east
by north of the site of Sandwich: the sand-hills were on the south-
eastern side of this beach, from which they were divided by a
narrow channel. Mr. Fox goes on to say that ‘a large extent of what
is now marshland, lying to the west of the hill, may then have ...
formed the haven,2469 making of the camp hill an island’. He argues,
however, that, on the eastern side, the channel ‘could not have
hugged the hill very closely, as at no great distance to the south of
the station on this same side, and in the low ground presumably
near the shore, fragments of a Roman house were discovered in
1846’.2470

In the year 1876 Dowker affirmed that ‘the low shore and sand hills’
which now extend from the Deal beach to the latitude of Sandwich
‘extended [in the time of Caesar] much less than at present’;2471
and in a map which accompanied his paper2472 he contrasted the
low-water line between Walmer and Sandwich, as he believed it to
have existed in 55 B.C., with the low-water line as it existed at the
time when he wrote. In the latitude of Sandwich the modern low-
water line is traced on this map a mile and a half east of the
hypothetical ancient line, which distance gradually diminishes to
three-quarters of a mile in the latitude of Worth and about one
furlong in the latitude of Deal. I find a difficulty in reconciling this
map with Dowker’s own statement that ‘Roman pottery, coins and
traces of the Roman occupation have been found in the sand-hills—
and indeed below the sand-hills considerably northward of Deal,
beyond Sandown Castle’;2473 and from the fact which this statement
records it follows that, in the time of the Roman occupation of
Britain, the shore-line at the place where the discoveries in question
were made cannot have been widely different from what it is now.

II. BETWEEN SANDOWN CASTLE AND WALMER

CASTLE
When we endeavour to trace the shore-line, as it existed in Caesar’s
time, opposite Deal and Walmer, we find that the writers who have
dealt with the question differ widely among themselves; while
Dowker again shows himself a most troublesome witness.
Unfortunately this meritorious geologist, who laboured hard to
elucidate the geographical questions connected with the ancient
history of East Kent, was a bad writer, and sometimes failed to make
his meaning clear.

Major Rennell, who was in his day ‘the acknowledged head of British
geographers’,2474 believed that Caesar landed at Deal. ‘Of course,’
he says, ‘the margin of the ancient beach, on which Caesar landed,
must now be very far within land, as well as very considerably
raised.’2475 The words ‘of course’ prepare us for the discovery that
Rennell quotes no authority and gives no reasons.

Professor Montagu Burrows,2476 also without giving either authority

or reason, tells us that Deal ‘probably had once a haven, which was
choked up in very early times’. But choked up it was not unless it
existed; and observe that its existence is only ‘probable’. As a matter
of fact, the so-called probability is unsupported by any evidence.2477
The professor goes on to say that ‘the old town [of Deal] was
already separated from the sea by a considerable interval when
Henry [the Eighth] built the three castles of Deal, Sandown, and
Walmer for the protection of the coast, which had now become a
continuous stretch of steep shingly beach’. Now if, in the time of
Henry the Eighth, ‘the old town was already separated from the sea
by a considerable interval,’ the inference is that it had once been
quite close to the sea; and of this there is no evidence. Was the
professor thinking of Leland,2478 who describes ‘Deale’ as ‘half a
Myle fro the Shore of the Se, a Fisshcher Village iii. Myles or more
above Sandwic’? If so, why should he assume that because Deal in
the time of Leland, that is to say, of Henry the Eighth, was half a
mile from the sea, it had once been on the sea? The only
conceivable reply to this question would be that as Upper Deal is
now more than half a mile from the sea,2479 and as, according to
Leland, it was only half a mile from the sea in the time of Henry, it
may once have been actually on the seashore. But Deal Castle was
built by Henry; and the sea was therefore at least as far from Upper
Deal in his time as it is now. The truth is that Leland’s ‘Myles’ were
sometimes very long: he tells us that Sandwich was ‘iii. Myles’ from
Deal, and it is really six.

Dowker, in the paper which he published in 1876,2480 maintained

that ‘Deal probably did not exist in Roman times’, and that, when
Caesar landed in Britain, ‘the coast was cut back behind Deal’:2481
that is to say, he virtually committed himself to agreement with the
view, already stated, of Major Rennell. In the same paper he
affirmed that ‘the present town of Deal is situated on a
comparatively recent beach’, and went on to say, in proof of his
assertion, ‘I have evidence of the beach at the back of Deal
containing mediaeval remains.’2482 What the evidence was, he did
not say; and what he meant by ‘the beach at the back of Deal’, I do
not know. In 1887 another paper2483 was published, containing a
report of his views. Herein I find that there is ‘no evidence’ of ‘a
shore-line cutting far back beyond the Deal beach’. No evidence in
1887, though in 1876 the evidence was irrefragable.2484

The opinion of Stukeley,2485 who believed that Caesar had landed

between Walmer Castle and Deal, was diametrically opposed to that
of Rennell. He maintained that Caesar’s camps must have been
‘absorpt by the ocean, which has so long been ... wasting the land
away’. ‘Even since Henry the VIIIths time,’ he continued, ‘it has
carried off the seaward esplanade of the three castles’ [of Walmer,
Deal, and Sandown].2486 But it does not follow that in the interval
which separated the time of Caesar from the time of Henry the
Eighth the sea in the neighbourhood of Deal had been continuously
gaining upon the land. It would appear that in the last four centuries
it has alternately advanced a little and receded.2487 In 1615, 1626,
and 1627 the waves were wearing away the walls which had been
erected for the protection of the castles of Walmer and Deal.2488
During the latter half of the eighteenth century, however, shingle
was being rapidly thrown up along the coast between St. Margaret’s
Bay and a point which, as Mr. Elvin2489 says, was ‘considerably to
the north of Sandown Castle’; and, although during the first thirty
years of the nineteenth century the sea was again encroaching, at
all events at Walmer, the bank of shingle between the Rifle Range at
Kingsdown and Walmer then began again to increase, while
northward of Deal as far as Sandown Castle the sea was
simultaneously gaining ground. In 1885 shingle was still
accumulating at Walmer Castle and also at Deal, although it was
recognized that at the latter place its movements were variable. For
some years previously, however, the shingle which formerly
protected the cliffs between St. Margaret’s and Kingsdown had been
travelling northwards past Walmer to Deal; and during the fourteen
years that followed 1885 the same process was going on: I daresay
it is going on still. At Deal, wrote Dowker in 1899,2490 ‘the shore line
has been nearly stationary until we approach the north end of Deal,
where the ... sea had washed most of the beach away and carried it
past the Castle.’ Finally, it must be borne in mind that from various
places between Walmer and the North Foreland a great deal of
shingle has been abstracted.2491 Still, if The North West View of
Walmer Castle, by S. and N. Buck, which was published in 1735, was
approximately accurate, the sea was a good deal nearer the castle
then than it is now; and the observations that were made between
1741 and 1884 show that while in that period the sea at Sandown
Castle gained 200 feet upon the land, off Deal Castle the increase of
shingle amounted to 120 feet, and off Walmer Castle to no less than
385.
The Reverend Beale Poste, a well-known antiquary of the nineteenth
century, maintained2492 that the bank of beach upon which Deal
stands must have existed in the time of Caesar, ‘since numerous
Roman coins are found at neap tides at low water on the chalk at
the edge of the beach.’ He added that ‘when the piles for the pier
were driven into the beach in 1842, it was found in a highly concrete
state, almost like rock, denoting great antiquity’. The former
statement, if it is correct,2493 would seem to prove that the shore-
line has receded, in other words, that the sea has on the whole
gained upon the land since the days of Caesar; the argument based
upon the condition of the beach into which the piles were driven
only tends to show that the lower stratum of the beach was old.

Quite recently a discovery has been made which ought to set the
question at rest. Romano-British interments have been unearthed
about seven hundred yards north of Walmer Castle, ‘on the low
ground ... adjoining, and only on a slightly higher level than the
Castle meadows.’2494 The spot where they lay is about two hundred
and fifty feet west of the high-water mark of ordinary tides. The
discovery, as Mr. Cumberland Woodruff remarks,2495 proves that ‘the
shore lands [between Walmer and Deal] were protected then as
now, though probably [or rather certainly] by a much thinner line of
shingle’.2496

The conclusion appears to be this. There is no reason to suppose

that the coast-line between Sandown Castle and Walmer Castle was
very different in Caesar’s time from that which is depicted on the
Ordnance Map; and there is positive proof that between Walmer
Castle and Deal Castle, at some period of the Roman occupation, it
was nearly the same. On the other hand, it is certain that since
Caesar landed a great deal of shingle has accumulated along this
part of the coast, especially at Walmer; and it may be inferred that
the beach was less steep then than it is now.
 III. THE GOODWIN SANDS
Before we attempt to inquire what was the condition of the Goodwin
Sands in the time of Caesar, it will be well to state the relevant facts
which have been ascertained since exact observations began to be
recorded.

‘The north-eastern part of the North Goodwin,’ says the author of

the Channel Pilot,2497 ‘dries in places 7 feet at low water; the South
Goodwin not more than 4 or 5 feet at any part.’

The form of the sands is altered periodically by the tides. Beale

Poste argued in 1857 that the Goodwin Sands were still growing, as
‘Kingsdown Mark, a pile ... built in the reign of Elizabeth to show the
South Sand head, is ... of no use, the sand having now extended
itself a mile further to the southward’. Moreover, he says, it was
stated in the Report of the Commission of the Harbours of Refuge
for 1845 that ‘the Brake Sand, a branch of the Goodwin Sands in the
Small Downs, had moved bodily inwards towards the shore seven
hundred yards within the last fifty years’. This, he maintains, can
only mean that ‘a deposit has taken place on the inward side of the
sand ... while the outward side has been eroded by the winds and
tides’.2498 In 1885 it was found that ‘the former Bunthead shoal’ had
‘entirely disappeared’,2499 and that ‘the whole body of the South
Calliper’ had ‘moved about a mile north-eastward’. Again, it was
ascertained by ‘a re-survey of the Downs, Goodwin Sands, and
adjacent coast’, executed in 1896, that since 1887 considerable
changes had taken place. ‘The Goodwin Sand,’ we learn from this
source, ‘has continued its general movement towards the coast, and
the area of drying sand has largely increased.’2500

The results of borings carried out at various times in the Goodwin

Sands have shown that blue clay, resting on chalk, was found at the
depths of 7, 15, 57, and 78 feet.2501 From these data Sir Charles
Lyell2502 concludes that the Goodwins ‘are a remnant of land, and
not “a mere accumulation of sea sand”;’ and, referring to the
destructive storm mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle2503 as
having occurred in 1099, he conjectures that ‘the last remains of an
island, consisting, like Sheppey, of clay, may perhaps have been
carried away about that time’.

Dr. Guest2504 holds that in Caesar’s time the Goodwin Sands did not
exist. He reminds us that, according to Somner,2505 it was the
opinion of ‘several men of judgement’ that they had not appeared
until after the time of Earl Godwin, and, remarking that this was also
the view of Sir Thomas More, he argues that ‘we may infer that such
at that period was the opinion of educated men who had local
knowledge’. Leland,2506 he goes on to say, ‘attributed the decay of
Sandwich to the Goodwin Sands, and as Sandwich was a flourishing
port in the fourteenth century, we may infer that it was not till the
fifteenth that the sands attained those formidable dimensions which
produced so much mischief.’ Immediately north of Sandown Castle
there is, he observes, a tract of land covered with low sand-hills,
which, in Philipot’s map of Kent, are called the ‘smale downs’,2507
and upon which the sea has long been encroaching. He accounts for
the name given to the roadstead by assuming that it once formed
part of the ‘smale downs’, and affirms his belief that ‘the flats round
Sandwich once projected into the sea as a low ness or foreland,—
probably divided into islands, of which Lomea [an island which John
Twine asserted to have formerly existed about four miles from
Thanet] was the easternmost’. He assumes that as Lomea is not
mentioned in Domesday Book, it perished by some natural
convulsion before the end of the eleventh century, and goes on to
say that ‘After the destruction of this island, the Goodwin Sands may
have been gradually accumulated, not necessarily on the site of the
island, but near it, and the Downs just as gradually excavated’.2508
Beale Poste2509 also affirms that in 1098 ‘an island named Lomea
was overflowed, on which occasion the sands are said to have been
formed. This is mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis, and from him by
Twine.... But Earl Goodwin (sic) died in ... 1053, and Domesday-
book negatives that any extensive tract of land was overflowed and
lost, in this direction.’
Now John Twine2510 (or Twyne) merely says that he has read about
Lomea in the works of ‘certain writers’. It was once, he says, a low
fertile island, which was submerged in consequence of a great
storm, and covered with sand, and it is now the Goodwin Sands. As
for Giraldus Cambrensis, I have searched his writings diligently, and I
can find no mention whatever therein either of Lomea2511 or of the
Goodwin Sands. The name ‘Downs’ is easily accounted for. ‘The
DOWNS,’ says the author of the Channel Pilot,2512 ‘in a general sense,
implies the numerous banks lying immediately off the coast between
the South and North Forelands ... that [anchorage] which is
commonly ... known as the Downs is off the town of Deal between
Walmer Castle and the northern part of the town,’ &c. I see no
reason to doubt that the name of the roadstead is derived from the
aforesaid banks and from the sand-dunes on the shore.

Somner,2513 remarking that, according to the common opinion,

Lomea was submerged in 1097, observes that there is no notice of
such an island either in Domesday Book or in ‘any Author whether
foreign or domestick, of any antiquity, that ever I could meet with’.

The late C. H. Pearson2514 inferred from ‘the legend of their

formation’2515 that the sands were ‘first remarked about the end of
the eleventh century’, and that they were ‘probably formed by bank-
currents gradually depositing sand about a shoal’.

On the other hand, S. Pritchard,2516 the historian, so called, of Deal,

argues that the sands must have existed ‘from all time’ as otherwise
Deal and the adjoining country would inevitably have been
inundated. Why? The island, the former existence of which is
assumed by Sir Charles Lyell, would have been as good a protection
as the sands; and in the time, which was certainly anterior to the
Roman invasion of Britain, when the shingle bank had not
accumulated to a sufficient height,2517 the very small area in the
neighbourhood of Deal which is below high-water mark may have
been inundated, unless, as Dowker2518 and Mr. Spurrell2519 believe,
the level of the land has been depressed since the Roman
occupation.

The reader has doubtless already concluded that it is impossible to

affirm either that the Goodwin Sands existed in the time of Caesar,
or that they had not then accumulated to such a degree as to attract
attention, or that their place was occupied by an island. If the
silence of Domesday Book and, as it should seem, the absence of
any other positive testimony constitutes an argument against the
hypothesis of Sir Charles Lyell,2520 the same argument may be
advanced to show that before the Norman Conquest the sands had
not begun to appear. Yet, as we shall see in a subsequent article,
there is some reason to believe that either sands or an island were
there when Caesar invaded Britain.2521 Tradition, vague as it is,
combined with Lyell’s authority, disposes me to accept tentatively the
latter alternative.

IV. THE SOUTH FORELAND AND THE DOVER

CLIFFS
Professor Montagu Burrows2522 affirms that ‘the space over which
the tides travel [in the Straits of Dover] must be at least two miles
wider than it was some 2,000 years ago’. This is one of the ex
cathedra statements in which the professor’s work abounds, and for
proof of which his amazed readers search his pages in vain.
Dowker’s estimate is more moderate: he only bids us ‘assume the
Straits are now one mile wider than when Caesar visited our
shores’;2523 but, like Professor Burrows, he requires us to make this
assumption in the dark.

In M. Vivien de St.-Martin’s great work it is stated that Cape Grisnez

‘perd en moyenne 25 centim. par an; autrement dit, il recule 25 m.
par siècle’.2524 Assuming the accuracy of this statement, and
assuming, further, that the rate of erosion has been constant since
the invasion of Caesar, Cape Grisnez then projected seaward 489
metres, or about 534 yards further than it does now. I take for
granted that the statement is based upon exact and prolonged
observation; but when did that observation begin?2525

As for the South Foreland, it is certain that, as Dowker says,2526 it is

(or at all events was in 1885 and for some years previously) ‘being
gradually undermined by the sea’; but it would be a great mistake to
leap to the conclusion that this erosion has been going on
continuously since the time of Caesar. In 1850 Captain K. B. Martin,
who was harbour-master of Ramsgate, affirmed that the cliff
between Dover and the South Foreland, being protected by ‘an
inclined plane of shingle’ from the sea, had ‘preserved its contour
from time immemorial’.2527 The phrase is somewhat vague: but the
captain was a careful observer; and we may believe him when he
tells us that since his boyhood, fifty years before the time when he
wrote, there had been no change.2528 Why, then, were the Dover
cliffs and the South Foreland being gradually eaten away in 1876,
when Dowker wrote, and in 1884? Simply because the supply of
shingle had, from various causes, been cut off.2529 The erosion, said
Mr. E. R. N. Druce, Engineer to the Government pier at Dover, takes
place ‘at no particular rate, but falls of cliff at the points above
named have taken place at intervals for some years past ... since
they have lost the protection of the shingle at their base’. He added
that the loss was ‘confined to areas bare of shingle’, and that, so far
as he could ascertain, there existed no ‘data for determining the rate
of erosion from early maps or other documents’.2530 It would
appear, then, that Professor Burrows’s assertion is based upon pure
imagination.

When the subsidence which had taken place in the Neolithic Age was
virtually complete the sea was bordered by a narrow plain, to which
the high ground descended gradually. Erosion was at first rapid while
the waters were devouring loose talus; but when beaches had had
time to form it was of course retarded.2531 How slow it is where the
rocks are hard is proved by the fact that the contour of a prehistoric
camp near Hastings shows that the seaward defence was formed not
by an artificial rampart but by the East Cliff.2532 Yet Professor
Burrows asks us to believe that erosion has been as rapid in the
chalk of the South Foreland as in the soft cliffs between
Flamborough Head and the Thames.2533 Generally speaking, as
erosion proceeds, cliffs become higher;2534 and it is obvious that if
the Channel had been two miles wider in Caesar’s time, the Dover
cliffs, if they had existed, would have been insignificant. But since
Caesar described them as ‘precipitous heights’,2535 and Cicero as
‘astonishing masses of cliff’,2536 they were evidently little lower then
than now. Let the reader ponder these things, and he will realize
how monstrously exaggerated is the estimate which assigns to the
Straits of Caesar’s time a breadth two miles less than our modern
maps show.2537

V. DOVER HARBOUR
That a natural harbour existed at Dover in the time of Caesar is
beyond dispute. It is mentioned under the name of Portus Dubris in
the Itinerary of Antonine;2538 and it was connected by a Roman
road with Canterbury and London, and also with Richborough.
Napoleon the Third2539 affirms that it was entirely choked up about
950 A.D.; but this is a blunder, for the harbour is mentioned in
Domesday Book.2540 Even as late as 1582 it was stated by an
engineer, named Thomas Digges, that ‘Before the peere was builte
out, there are men alyue can remember that was no banckes or
shelues of beache to be seene before Douer,2541 but all cleane sea
betwene Arteclif [Archcliff] tower and the castle clyffe’.2542 Captain
Martin2543 holds that the remains of anchors which have been dug
up out of meadows in the valley prove that the estuary was
navigable as far as Crabble;2544 and he believes that it actually
extended to Water’s End,2545 and covered the sites of the villages of
Charlton and Buckland. Canon Puckle, however, argues that ‘the
primitive haven’ covered a space which extended barely a quarter of
a mile inland, ‘bounded by the lower half of St. James’ Street,
Dolphin Lane, and Russell Street, and the east end of Dolphin
Lane,’2546 and he states that when this area was ‘partly uncovered in
excavating for the new Russell Street gas works, quays and hawser-
rings were brought to light’. Captain Martin’s estimate, which is
based upon very uncertain data, must be regarded as an
exaggeration: the estuary may possibly have extended up to
Crabble, but was certainly not navigable so far except perhaps by
coracles. Many years ago the remains of a Roman bath were
discovered on the site of St. Mary’s church,2547 and in 1887 a statue
belonging to the period of the Roman occupation was found ‘during
excavations for the foundation of the Carlton Club, in the Market
Place’.2548 These discoveries help to define approximately the
western limit of the harbour; and I believe that Planche 17 of the
Atlas accompanying Napoleon’s Histoire de Jules César2549
represents it with tolerable accuracy.
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