It is scarcely necessary to say that cairns, barrows, or tumuli, are, archæologically, the names applied to ancient burial-mounds. How the earliest races of men disposed of their dead we do not know; but we know that the earliest stages of civilization were everywhere characterized by a marked consideration for the dead, and this represents the strongest and perhaps ultimate difference between man and beast. When Neolithic man first appeared in our island, he already had an elaborate system of sepulture, and the megalithic chambers he raised are the greatest monuments of his age, and are among the most notable remains of prehistoric times. The Pyramids of Egypt are but barrows on a colossal scale, and constructed with all the engineering skill and refinement of a higher stage of culture than obtained in the west of Europe, and they will probably outlast all the other works of the ancient Egyptians. It is not difficult to understand why burial under mounds should have preceded burial in the ground. In primitive times, before man possessed metal tools, it was easier to collect stones from the waste or to scrape sand or soil from the surface, wherewith to make a heap, than to dig a hole. Hence it is that in the tumuli of the Neolithic Age, and many of those of the following Bronze Age, interments are found upon or above the old ground level; while in others of the latter age, and many subsequent tumuli, they are found in shallow or deep excavations, over which the mounds were raised. To the early Christians the tumuli savoured of paganism, and soon ceased to be raised, but we have a reminiscence of the ancient mode of burial in our word “tomb.” In our country, as in the west of Europe generally, they range from Neolithic times to the establishment of Christianity, and the study of their contents better enables us to bridge the long interval with the successive advances made by man than does that of any other class of contemporary remains. In Derbyshire this is eminently the case, and perhaps no other English county can furnish so continuous a series of ancient interments.