"A second type of these foundations of huts has been observed south of the village of Skipwith, near Riccall, south-east of York. These were oval or circular rings slightly excavated in the heathy surface, on the drier parts of the common. On digging into this area, marks of fire were found: they were concluded to be the foundation-lines of huts, mostly enclosed by single or double mounds or ditches. "The third form of hut foundation, an incomplete ring of stone walls, has only yet been observed in Yorkshire, on the summit of Ingleborough. How strange to find at this commanding height," says Professor Phillips, "encircled by a thick and strong wall, and within this wall the unmistakeable foundations of ancient habitations! The Rev. Robert Cooke, in 1851, concluded Ingleborough to be a great hill-fort of the Britons, defended by a wall like others known in Wales, and furnished with houses like the 'Cittian,' of Gwynedd. The area inclosed is about 15 acres, in which space are nineteen horse-shoe-shaped low foundations, evidently the foundations of ancient huts, the antecedent of the cottages of England,--a low wall foundation, a roof formed by inclined rafters, and covered by boughs, heath, rushes, grass, straw, or sods. The relative dates, surely, admit of no doubt. The huts and walls of Ingleborough exhibit principles of construction which remove them from the catalogue of barbarian works."[3] The Britons, before the first Roman invasion, slept on skins spread on the floor of their rude dwellings. Rushes and heath were afterwards substituted by the Romans for skins; and on the introduction of agriculture they slept upon straw, which, indeed, was used as a couch in the royal chambers of England at the close of the 14th century. FOOTNOTES: [1] _Annals of England_, vol. i. 1855. [2] _Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_, N. S. No. 1, 1858. [3] _The Rivers, Mountains, and Sea-Coasts of Yorkshire_, 2d edit. 1855. BRITAIN BEFORE THE ROMAN COLONIZATION. Hitherto we have but glanced at the dwelling-places of our ancestors, chiefly from existing evidences. Of the general condition of the people before the Roman Conquest, we find this picturesque account in Lappenberg's able work on the Anglo-Saxon Kings. The earliest inhabitants of Britain, as far as we know, were probably of that great family, the main branches of which, distinguished by the designation of Celts, spread themselves so widely over middle and western Europe. They crossed over from the neighbouring country of Gaul. At a later period, the Belgæ, actuated by martial restlessness or the love of plunder, assailed the southern and western coasts of the island, and settled there, driving the Celts into the inland country. Lappenberg's life-like picture of the condition of these people is as follows:--