XV.
enormous number of fragments of pottery, bricks,
and vessels, although not one of these seems by any
chance to be entire, and very few are sufficiently per-
fect to indicate the capacity, or even the shape, of the
vessel or article to which the formerly belonged.
An old man who has lived all his life in the neigh-
bourhood, and has, for many years, been in the habit
of carting away earth from a mound, or "Red Hill,"
as he called it, says that he had moved many hundreds
of loads, but has never found a single piece of whole
pottery or a coin. He sometimes sees flints, but has not
sufficient knowledge to distinguish between a worked or
chipped flint and another ; nor can he be taught to
see the difference, even with the strong inducement
offered him of unlimited beer and five shillings apiece
for all he found.
Mixed with the earth in this and all the other
mounds are large quantities of charcoal and wood-
ashes, though occurring very irregularly, but there is
no trace of coal. Clinkers in some places are not only
common, but almost abundant, and show that great
heat must have been thrown out by the fires that
burnt out.
In only one instance has a natural cross-section of
any mound been seen or heard of, and the position of
this happens to be readily accessible. It is quite close
to the high road from Colchester to Mersea, there
consisting of a raised causeway, called the Strood,
crossing the creek mentioned above as connecting the
Colne and Blackwater. This mound is about five feet
thick, and is intersected by a small creek, much
haunted by crabs. Of the little pottery it yielded, two
pieces were Roman turned-ware, the only occurrence
of such pottery yet found in the mounds. There was
also much cellular semi-vitrified earth and burnt clay,
with impressions of the sea-grass, Enteromorpha com-
pressa. This mound has also its upper surface left in
a series of narrow stetches, giving evidence of cultiva-
tion during Saxon times, when that form of tillage was
usually followed.
Mr. H. Laver, F.L.S., of Colchester, says that
another mound, at Tollesbury, was also tilled during
this period, and, having been apparently abandoned
to the sea, it remains outside the sea-wall, still retain-
ing the characteristic narrow stetches.
The total number of these mounds in Britain, or
even in Essex, must be considerable, when,
after centuries of destruction, eighteen still remain
between Virley and the Strood, a distance of only six
miles. Others are said to exist on the Crouch in
Essex, in Kent, along the wide rivers of Suffolk, on
the Norfolk coast, in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and
Durham. Still they seem to occur in the greatest
number and of the largest size in Essex, which is a