But, after all, I see, the extent of Kew Gardens is not so great, measured by acreage instead of their riches. I detest mere facts, and love impressions; but here is a fact, for once in a way books of reference give the size of Kew Gardens as some 350 acres only. The Director and his colleagues in botany and arboriculture look across to the factory chimneys of Brentford with dismay, and write alarming things in annual reports about the effects of the noxious fumes from those chimneys upon the trees and plants of the gardens, so Brentford, we may take it, is a menace, and since the Brentford Gas Company is a highly prosperous and expanding business, and is certainly in the front rank as a fume-producer, the menace we may further suppose to be increasing. The end of these things no man can foresee, but the passing away of Kew Gardens would be a thing too grievous to contemplate. Brentford, it is true, cannot by any means be styled a village, and it owns indeed the dignity of the county town of Middlesex. Thus it would find no place in these pages, were it not that Brentford sets up as the rival of Coway Stakes near Walton, for the honour of being that historic spot where Julius Cæsar crossed the Thames. It is only of recent years that this claim has been put forward, and until then Coway Stakes scarcely knew a competitor. But at different times during dredging operations in the bed of the river, and in the course of building new wharves and other waterside structures, great numbers of ancient oak stakes have been discovered, extending with intervals, from about four hundred yards below Isleworth ferry down to the upper extremity of Brentford eyot. Near Isleworth ferry they were found in 1881, in a threefold line, interlaced with wattles and boughs, and continue, generally in a single line, at intervals, under the river banks, with advanced rows in the bed of the river, past the places where the river Brent falls into the Thames in two branches. The stakes, that have been numerously extracted in these last thirty years, are in fairly good preservation, and measure in general fifteen inches in circumference. The criticism, of course, arises here, How could the Britons at such necessarily short notice have executed so extensive a work to impede the passage of the Romans, who came swiftly up from Kent and who could not have been confidently expected at any one point? The stakes extend for about two miles and appear to have been thoroughly and methodically arranged. The wattling, too, is evidence of care and deliberation. Doubts must arise. They may have been already long in existence before Cæsar came, and have been intended for defence against rival tribes; or again, they may not really be so ancient as supposed; and their object merely for the protection of the banks from being eroded by the current. [Illustration: “OLD ENGLAND.”]