We need not record the existence of dolmens, or table-stones, the remains of burial mounds, which have been washed away by denudation, nor of what the French folk call alignements, or lines of stones, which have suffered like other megalithic monuments.  Barrows or tumuli are still plentiful, great mounds of earth raised to cover the prehistoric dead.  But many have disappeared.  Some have been worn down by ploughing, as on the Berkshire Downs.  Others have been dug into for gravel.  The making of golf-links has disturbed several, as at Sunningdale, where several barrows were destroyed in order to make a good golf-course.  Happily their contents were carefully guarded, and are preserved in the British Museum and in that of Reading.  Earthworks and camps still guard the British ancient roads and trackways, and you still admire their triple vallum and their cleverly protected entrance.  Happily the Earthworks Committee of the Congress of Archaeological Societies watches over them, and strives to protect them from injury.  Pit-dwellings and the so-called “ancient British villages” are in many instances sorely neglected, and are often buried beneath masses of destructive briers and ferns.  We can still trace the course of several of the great tribal boundaries of prehistoric times, the Grim’s dykes that are seen in various parts of the country, gigantic earthworks that so surprised the Saxon invaders that they attributed them to the agency of the Devil or Grim.  Here and there much has vanished, but stretches remain with a high bank twelve or fourteen feet high and a ditch; the labour of making these earthen ramparts must have been immense in the days when the builders of them had only picks made out of stag’s horns and such simple tools to work with.

Along some of our hillsides are curious turf-cut monuments, which always attract our gaze and make us wonder who first cut out these figures on the face of the chalk hill.  There is the great White Horse on the Berkshire Downs above Uffington, which we like to think was cut out by Alfred’s men after his victory over the Danes on the Ashdown Hills.  We are told, however, that that cannot be, and that it must have been made at least a thousand years before King Alfred’s glorious reign.  Some of these monuments are in danger of disappearing.  They need scouring pretty constantly, as the weeds and grass will grow over the face of the bare chalk and tend to obliterate the figures.  The Berkshire White Horse wanted grooming badly a short time ago, and the present writer was urged to approach the noble owner, the Earl of Craven, and urge the necessity of a scouring.  The Earl, however, needed no reminder, and the White Horse is now thoroughly groomed, and looks as fit and active as ever.  Other steeds on our hillsides have in modern times been so cut and altered in shape that their nearest relations would not know them.  Thus the White Horse at Westbury, in Wiltshire, is now a sturdy-looking little cob, quite up to date and altogether modern, very different from the old shape of the animal.