P R E L IM IN A R Y OBSERVATIONS.
In the beautiful and romantic County of Somerset, west of that part of the Mendip cliain of
mountains, where stands the venerable City of Wells, and about three ov foni' miles from the once
famous Town of Glastonbury, are the villages of Street, Walton, Butlcigh-Wootton and Kington. These
retired hamlets, possessing tlie most interesting rural population, are founded upon tlie lias which
constitutes the upper stratum of the richest parts of the County; its fertilizing properties, with many
other concurring local causes, producing the most luxurious pasture-land in the kingdom. In all
these places, pits or quames are being wrought continually, and the limestones are universally used
for buildings, roads and innumerable other purposes.
Street, Walton and Butleigli-Wootton, imbosomed in lofty elm, command from their happy
situation the sides of a gently-rising ridge of hills, whicli sweep gi-acefully tlirough a considerable
portion of Somerset, tlie softest and most delightful scenery imaginable. This, with the truly
imsopliisticatcd manners of their good-looking and hospitable inliabitants, must render them objects of as
much pleasurable attention to tlie intellectual tourist, as to the lover of nature’s mysteries.
They were the sites of Roman habitations, for numerous tesserse and pieces of pottery, with
fragments of altars and coins, have been repeatedly ploughed up in tlie neighbouring fields. Nor can
there be any doubt that these invaders availed themselves of the limestone, whicli abounded there,
for their villas, and for making mortar. However, it does not appear that they dug pits, but merely
collceled the rubbly debris which lay scattered over the surface of the country.
To defend tlieir newly-acquired territory from the fierce aborigines and to prosecute tlie important
mines of lapis-calaininavis, lead and manganese—the chief.fruits of tlicir conquest—in the bleak Mendip.
was tlicir necessary care during tlic first years which followed their successful invasion. Tliis constant
occupation of their minds and the alluvium and sub-marl, prevented a discovery of the lias treasure;
tlierefore their dwellings were composed for tlie most part of brick, and some oolite brought from the
vicinage of Batii. Even when the natives liad entirely submitted to their yoke and they were able to
cultivate the higher aims of human ambition in security, we note that the individuals whose wealth