perfectly incontrovertible. But there is an infinitude of other causes working for the dilapidation of the ancient walls at Zimbabwe, and some of these are undoubtedly preventable. It was for the purpose of removing such causes of damage that the recent work of preservation was undertaken on behalf of the Rhodesian Government, and these operations it is the purpose of this volume to describe. The Great Zimbabwe, as also the many associated ruins scattered throughout Southern Rhodesia, has been subject to wholesale destruction of its walls by the growth of trees, the presence of damp, the falling of immense trees across walls, the quarrying of its walls by past and present natives for building material, for cattle kraals, and other purposes. All the ruins at Zimbabwe afford ample evidences of the ravages caused by vegetable growth, and no ruin appears to have escaped some measure of destruction from this cause. In 1902 the Elliptical Temple was found to be full of large trees of immense girth, some being at least sixty feet in height. The shelter from the chilly winds prevailing at night and in the dry winter season, and the protection from damage to bark by grass fires provided by the high and massive walls, together with the perpetual state of damp from wet season to wet season prevailing within the walls, the close, hothouse temperature most favourable to the promotion of growth, provided an area in which trees and plants could flourish most luxuriantly. The trees within the temple are almost all hard woods of slow growth. One tree, not by any means a large one, showed by its rings an age of over a hundred years. The numerous fig-trees must be of great age. The three immense hard-wood trees in the centre of the building may possibly be a hundred years old. The rest of the temple was as full of soft-wooded trees as space permitted, while the branches of trees near the main walls crowded over the tops of the walls towards the outside. Undergrowth of monkey-ropes, wild vines, thorn creepers, and large bushes formed a dense jungle through which it was almost impossible to pass, while the damp maintained the soil in a wet, soggy state, the trees being covered with orchids and long, trailing festoons of lichen, the shaded walls being one mass of creepers, green moss, lichens, and ferns, and dripping with damp. Certainly such growth made the temple beautifully picturesque, and added greatly to its weird, desolate, and solemn appearance.