The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-19 00:00:00

State of Trade.

MANCHESTER, Dec. 18.--. We have had a fair
amount of business in shipping yarns at id. to id.
per lb. advance in the prices of last Tuesday. There
would have been still more doing but for the yet
higher rates asked by rnanyspinners, and the market
closes very strong, with au upward tendency. The
market for home trade yarns has also been very
strong, with rather more than an average business,
at id. per lb. advance on Ihe lowest rates of last
week. The market for yarns generally shows an
improvement. The large sales of cotton at increased
rates at Liverpool have also acted as usual on our
cloth-market, but
i the increased prices manufac-
turers have been induced to demand have by no
means been conceded by buyers. We still have a
good general inquiry for cloth, but there is no dispo-
sition to operatefor more thansmall quantitieswateeag
noticeable advance on the quotations of last
sales. Prices are nominally higher, but we close with
business restricted within very narrow limits at the
advance asked. Messrs. John Slagg and Co. report
of this day's cloth-market :—‘‘ We have again an
excited and advancing market in Liverpool, followed
as usual, by increased quotations for yarns. In ap-
plying this advance to goods, however, we find busi-
ness at once checked. In few cases has any advan-
tage been realised on last week's rates, though quo-
tations are throughout nominally higher.
CARDIFF, 17th.—The steam coal trade is active.
The mail-packet companies are taking considerable
quantities for their coaling stations abroad, and
some of the foreign Governments are in the markets
for supplies of Welsh steam. The docks are full of
vessels chartered for coal cargoes on foreign account.
There is a steady increase in the requirements of the
metropolitan and midland markets, as well as in the
quantity sent by railway to Birkenhead for ship-
ment. Active measures are being adopted at many
of the works to sink to the lower measures, and new
collieries are being opened. The reduction of wages
at the ironworks will not effect the collieries ; in fact
many proprietors experience the greatest difficulty
in obtaining a sufficiency of skilled labour. The iron
trade in the Aberdare Valley has hitherto been
tolerably good ; but the continued depression is
beginning to be felt most seriously, and a curtail-
ment of operations is being carried out. At the
Cyfarthfa works upwards of 1,000 hands have been
thrown out of employment in consequence of
three of the furnaces being blown out. The works
are chiefly employed upon foreign orders, the ma-
jority of which are on American account, and con-
tracts from that quarter keep gradually coming in.
With the other foreign markets business generally
of a quiet character. There is a slow sale for pig-
iron, and the demand for tin plates is less active.
LEEDS, 18th.—This has been a quiet day in the
cloth halls, there having been a thin attendance of
buyers, and only a small quantity of goods were
sold. The goods purchased included a few assort-
ments of Plain cloths, mixture coatings, tweeds,
and hair lists. The reports from the country
clothiers are quite as good as they have been for
some time, and, though there is a feeling of quiet-
ness throughout the trade, there is a hopeful feeling
as to an improvement after the Christmas holidays
and the settlement of the present year's accounts.
ROCHDALE, 17th.--At to-day,,
moderate attendance flannelof emrsarbkieitt
they there was :a
purchased so sparingly that but a smallillt:q:iiiiiiyaunton-f
ti ty goods changed hands. Fine and
fancies keep their place wall, and fully as
these goods were sold as of heavy ones. The manu-
facturers keep well employed, though their stocks
are slightly on the increase, and it is not expected
that there will b^ much increase in the demand till
the commencement of the new year. I'Votwithstand-
ing the general quietness in both the flannel and the
Yorkshire goods trades, prices keep steady. The
local wool trade, too, is quiet. Late prices, however,
are in most cases maintained, but they are lower
than they were a few months since.

Anthri

lociety.

Yesterday evening an ordinary meeting of this
society was held in their rooms, in St. Martin's-
place—Dr. Charnock in the chair. The first paper,
read by Col. L. Fox, described sore discoveries re-
cently made during excavations near London-wall,
which seem to prove that so recently as the period
of the Roman occupation of this country a large
portion of London was built upon piles, and that, as
an object of archmological interest, it may be com-
pared with the lake habitations of Switzerland. Be-
low the surface soil, at a depth of about 9 feet, there
is a bed of peat, of nearly equal thickness, in which
theunmistakable remains of "kitchen middens," and
piles, driven apparently for the purpose of support-
ing habitations, were found ; and among the peat,
at different levels, were found numerous objects of
Roman manufacture, including urns, tiles, bronze
and bone implements, and come made of iron. The
piles were of oak, from six to eight inches square,
pointed at the end; and in some instances they
were driven perpendicularly a few inches into the
substratum of gravel. Numerous bones of ani-
mals were mingled with the shells in the kitchen
middens, most of which had been broken longitudi-
nally to extract the marrow. Among the bones,
many specimens of which were exhibited on the
table, were those of the bos longifrons and the rein-
deer, now extinct in this country, and the fossil bone
of an ibex from the Pyrenees. These objects had
apparently been deposited at various periods during
the growth of the peat-bed, which it is supposed
must have acquired the thickness of 9ft. during the
Roman occupation of London. Two human skulls
were also found, one of which was declared to be of
the Roman type, and the other of a much lower
organisation. The peat-bed was situated about 19ft.
above the present high-water mark of the Thames,
and it is conjectured to have extended to the river,
and that while archaeologists have been exploring
with great assiduity the relies of lake habitations in
foreign countries, they have overlooked the exten-
sive remains of similar habitations in the city of Lon-
don. What gives peculiar interest to this discovery
is that it shows the comparatively modern date
of the construction of lake habitations, which, when
first made known in Switzerland, were supposed to
belong to a pre-Adamite period of man's existence.
It shows, at the same time, the rapid accumulation
of peat under circumstances favourable to its growth,
and thus contradicts some geological speculations as
to the length of time required for the growth of
ancient peat beds. The puzzling circumstance is the
discovery of the bones of animals supposed to have
been extinct in this part of Europe ages before the
invasion of the Romans, associated with bronze and
even with iron implements, and with tiles on which
the name of Vespasian is impressed.
At the conclusion of the paper, the Rev. Dunbar
Heath and Mr. Carter Blake, who had visited the
excavation, confirmed the correction of Colonel
Lane Fox's description, and Mr. Blake stated that
the bone of the ibex was more ancient than the
bones found in the "drift." Mr. Charlesworth sug-
gested that the bones of extinct animals might
have been found and fashioned into implements by
a race of men who lived subsequently to the
existence of those animals, and that would account
for the apparent incongruity. All the objects were
deposited in the peat, and were not found on the
gravel beneath it.

A second paper was then read by the Rev. Dun-
bar Heath, on the way in which large bodies of
mute men. would acquire language from small bodies.
of speaking men. The paper was an elaborate ex-
position of Mr. Heath's views respecting tho origin
and dissemination of language, to accord with what
is called Grimm's law. He contended that language
could be much more easily taught to mutes than a
new language could be acquired by men who had a
language of their own. Mr. Pike refuted this
opinion, and as several other gentlemen wanted to
speak on the question the discussion was adjourned.

Archaeological Investigations in Westmore-

land.

During thewhole of last week the Rev. W. Green-
well, of Durham, accompanied by the Rev. James
Simpson, vicar of Kirkby Stephen ; the Rev. Chas.
M. Preston, vicar of IVarcop; the Rev. T. Tasker,
of Carlisle ; the Rev. Charl,!s Pixel], of Skirwith ;
and Mr. R. Hewitson, of Ellergill, have made in-
vestigations in five sepulchral tumuli, situate in the
mountainous country in the vicinity of Appleby,
Brough, and Kirkby Stephen. The researches have
been of the most interesting description, the excava-

tions, yielding the remains of the ancient Britons,
both burnt and unburnt, and in two cases showing
the practice of the Anglo-Saxon adoption of older
barrows for their burials, one of which was disco-
vered as recorded just 100 years ago, and another
important illustration last week in a barrow slightly
to the South of Kirkby Stephen, a British burial
having been disturbed to insert the rough log coffin
and body of, as shown by the funeral accompani-
ments, an Anglo-Saxon, of which the details were of
value. The details of the openings show the follow-
ing results. The first barrow examined, at Sand-
ford, in the palish of IVarcop, was all of sand, 72
feet in diameter, and five feet high, but somewhat
ploughed down. On the surface at the centre were
one or possibly two unburnt bodies gone very
much to decay to allow of position being traced, or
anything more than to recognise that bone was pre-
' sent. Some charcoal was under and about the bones,
and with it a single flint chipping. Close by were
once two other barrows and a circle of stones, one
barrow and a circle being quite gone ; the other re-
mains, but was opened in 1766, slightly larger than
the one opened last week. It is recorded that near
c the surface at the apex were found an iron sword
and some other iron articles--no doubt the accom-
paniments of an Anglo-Saxon later burial. Below
this was a pile of stones (conical), and beneath was
a cist containing a
a
deposit of burnt bones. The next
barrow opened was at Asby,
os bfY
ground. The mound
stones,'in ahollow on high
ground. 34ft.
diameter,
igh
w
and 3ft. high, placed
upon a slight gravel hill, and
a circle of stones put round the base. Five feet
E.S.E. of the centre, just above the surface of the
ground, the remains of two b
un urnt bodies were
found, which had either been deposited after break-
ing up, or had been disturbed after burial and re-
interred--the latter seeming probable.lu the cen-
tre, an oval hollow six inches deep and one and a
half feet diameter, contained a burnt body. There
were a few animal bones in the cairn, but.not a ves-
tige of charcoal. The fifth barrow was of a very
remarkable description. It was situate about a mile
south of Kirkby Stephen, on the crown of a hill,
and was formed of stones and earth, was 28ft. in
diameter, and one and a half feet high, but partly
destroyed by the Ordnance Survey people. In the
centre, in a hollow 2ft. 3in. below the surface of the
ground, a wooden coffin was found of a curious de-
scription, containing a burial. The coffin had been
formed in this wise--a rough outer slab of a large
tree had been first slightly hollowed, and at the
head a piece of wood was placed upright, and down
each side from the head were similar slabs about 2ft.
long, forming partial sides. The coffin lay north-
west by south-east, the head to the north-west. It
was 6ft. long, 2ft. 3in. wide at the head, and aft. gin.
at the foot. At 3ft. Gin. from the north-west end were
two circular holes through the bottom, as if for
binding down the body, which had gone thoroughly
to decay. The remains had been covered with sedges
and flag leaves, and over them the branches and
bark of birch. Where the chest should have been
was found a bed of blue glass, speckled with red
ard yellow, and on the south of the coffin,
where the head should have been, was a shallow
bronze bow or dish, much decayed and fragmentary,
the rim and the centre of the bottom being nearly
perfect, however. The bowl is about three and a
half inches in diameter. Over the collin blue clay
had been placed, with yellow clay on each side,both
intentionally deposited as found. A few inches—
six or eight—from the south side of the coffin, and
about eight inches above it, was a burnt body in a
hollow in the natural
surface, the bones beingat the
south side of this hollow, and the place of burning
being apparently to the north of it. Some charcoal
and pieces of burnt bone were under the side and
almost to the centre of the
coffin. There seemed no
doubt but that the burnt interment was the primary
one, and that it was partly disturbed,
as shown by
the cut into it and the place of burning, to form the

! grave for the later burial in the coffin, and in so
doing some of the burnt bones and earth fell to the
bottom. The coffin burial is thought to be Anglo-
Saxon, as is indicated by the bead and the bowl,
both being not uncommon. Unfortunately no
skulls have been obtained. There is one singular
feature—there was a very slightly chipped arrow-
head of flint near the bronze. bowl, but it is possible
and probable this fell down from the burnt British
burial. It is of the leaf shape, but is so like a na-
tural flint that it is submitted to Mr. J. Evans,
F.S.A., of Hemel llempstead, for opinion.