Nor is this all. The whole range of the Downs as I say is scattered
thick with the work of our pre-historic forefathers. In Burlough Castle
and Mount Caburn we have fortresses so old that it is impossible to
name the age in which they were contrived and built, nor can we assert
with any confidence who they were that first occupied the camp upon
Ditchling Beacon, the highest point of the South Downs, or who first
defended Wolstanbury. And it is the same with those most famous places
Cissbury Ring and Chanctonbury. But the flint mines upon Cissbury give
us some idea of the neolithic men, our forefathers, which should and
does astonish us. The Camp itself is less wonderful than the mines upon
the western side of it. Here we have not only numerous pits from ten to
seventy feet in diameter and from five to seven feet deep, but really
vast excavations leading to galleries which tap a belt or band of
flints. That these mines were worked by neolithic man it is impossible
to doubt, but he may not have discovered or first used them. They may
be older than he, though all record even upon that marvellous hill-
side, has been lost of those who first exploited them.
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