26 The Presidential Address.
mean additional clearing of forest, and each new immigra-
tion may be presumed to have added to the density of the
population, though it is believed not to have reached a
a million by the time of Caesar.43
It is with the fourth race, the Celts, that the written
records of British History begin. Pytheas,44 the astronomer
of Marseilles, noted, in the middle of the fourth century before
Christ, that they had abundance of wheat in Kent, which
they thrashed in covered barns ; that they drank metheglin,
made of wheat and honey, and that they also grew millet,
had cultivated fruits, and some domestic animals. Timeas,46
a contemporary writer, mentions their canoes made of wicker-
work covered with hide; whilst Posidonius, the Stoic, writing
in the first century a.d., says "the people have mean habita-
tions constructed for the most part of rushes or sticks, and
their harvest consists in cutting off the ears of corn and
storing them in pits underground." These "mean habita-
tations" seem to have been the bee-hive huts, whether sub-
terranean, as at Salisbury,46 or with a hollowed floor and
wigwam-roof, as apparently on the Cotteswold Hills. They
seem also to have erected stockades, "duns" or towns,47 in
times of war, and to have made no contemptible advances in
agriculture and manufactures before the Roman invasion.
They manured and marled their land, chalk being dug not
only for home use, but for exportation to the Continent.48
Caesar gives somewhat contradictory accounts as to their
corn, but certainly at a but slightly later period considerable
43 Pearson, 'Historical Maps,' p. viii.
44 For a full account of Pytheas, see the early part of Mr. Elton's work.
His account of Britain is given on p. 32. The remains of his works
have been collected in 'Pytheas Massiliensis Fragrnenta' by A. Arvedson,
Upsala, 1824.
45 See Elton, p. 35.
46 See Stevens, 'Flint-Chips.'
47 "Oppidum autem Britanni vocant, cum silvas impeditas vallo atque
fossa munierunt, quo ineursionis hostium vitandae causa convenire con-
suerunt." — Caesar, 'De Bello Gallico,' v., 21. Such a town was the
"dun," the Welsh "dinas," a castle or a city.
48 For a detailed account of this agricultural process and trade see
Pliny, 'Historia Naturalis,' xvii., 4.