THE LATE LIEUT.-GENERAL PITT-RIVERS.
247
Among the earlier excavations carried out by the General should be
mentioned those of Mount Caburn, Cissbury, and Caesar's Camps in Sussex.
These remains, although not so elaborately excavated and reported upon
as those sites explored later, are nevertheless very important. The
exploration of Cissbury proved to be of special interest and revealed that the
camp itself had been formed in pre-Roman times but that this was, overlying
an earlier Neolithic Flint Mine, some of the implements from which showed
great resemblance to palaeolithic types. Punches and wedges formed from
tines and fragments of deer-horn were found in the galleries of the mine,
indicating the method by which the flints had been procured. A report of
this exploration was published in the Journal of the Anthrop. Inst. in 1875.
Gen. Pitt-Rivers was appointed Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Great
Britain, and in 1884 carried out some excavations in the Pen Pits, near Pensel-
wood, in Somerset, for the purpose of ascertaining whether these ancient pits
should be placed under the Ancient Monuments Act. In his capacity as
Inspector the General did much good work and succeeded in obtaining the
permission of owners to place many important monuments under the pro-
tection provided by the Act.
It was perhaps as a collector that Gen. Pitt-Rivers was most brilliant,
his wide and diversified learning, combined with a special power of observing
ethnic changes, served to constitute him a scientific collector of the highest
order. He had strong convictions as to the educational value of museums
and insisted on the need of a museum in London for educational purposes
apart from the large national collections which are essentially store houses for
research. His idea was that in an educational museum, the development of
any species in natural history or the history of any art or industry should be
demonstrated by means of objects arranged in sequence, showing the
successive changes that have taken place during their progress to perfection.
By this means those having but a rudimentary knowledge would unconsciously
be educated, by means of the eye, to form a correct knowledge of history and
the process of evolution which knowledge they would be able to apply to other
matters. With the object of founding a museum of this description, Gen.
Pitt-Rivers offered to the nation his large and valuable anthropological collec-
tion (the gathering together of which had occupied him the greater part of his
life) on the condition that it should form the nucleus of an educational institu-
tion. Although the idea was well received in many quarters, the Government
rejected the offer, on the ground that it was undesirable to have two separate
ethnographical museums in London, The collection was exhibited for some
years at South Kensington and Bethnal Green Museums, but was eventually
presented to the University of Oxford.
There is one feature of this collection to which special reference should
be made ; that is the illustration of the origin and development of decorative
art. It is largely owing to these striking series in his collection exemplifying
the Evolution of Design that has led many to devote themselves to this study
with excellent results. Papers by the General on this subject will be found
in the Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vol. iv., p. 293 ; Proc. Royal Inst., vii., pt. 6.
As an example of the manner in which the General brought his powers of
observation and varied knowledge of things to bear on his system of collecting
one cannot do better than turn to his Development and Distribution of Primitive