When in 1850 appeared the Report of the Secretary of War for the United States, containing Mr. J. H. Simpson's account of the Cliff Dwellings in Colorado, great surprise was awakened in America, and since then these remains have been investigated by many explorers, of whom I need only name Holmes' "Report of the Ancient Ruins in South-West Colorado during the Summers of 1875 and 1876," and Jackson's "Ruins of South- West Colorado in 1875 and 1877." Powell, Newberry, &c., have also descri

Humphrey Kynaston—His adventurous life—Cave at Ness Cliff—Chinamen— David at Adullam—Bandit caves in Palestine—Lombrive—Surtshellir— Feruiden's cave—Gargas—La Crouzafce—The haunts of Grettir— Dunterton—Precautions against burglary—Story of K. F. Masch—His capture—The Leichtweishohle—Adersbach retreats—Babinsky—His capture Difference between the tombs of the Israelites and those of the Egyptians—The reason for this—Jewish catacombs at Rome—Christian catacombs—Puticoli—Numerous catacombs—Those of

In a vastly remote past, and for a vastly extended period, the mighty deep rolled over the surface of a world inform and void, depositing a sediment of its used up living tenants, the microscopic cases of foraminiferæ, sponges, sea-urchins, husks, and the cast limbs of crustaceans. The descending shells of the diatoms like a subaqueous snow gradually buried the larger dejections. This went on till the sediment had attained a thickness of over one thousand feet. Then the earth beneath, heaved and

Herodotus, speaking of the Ligurians, says that they spent the night in the open air, rarely in huts, but that they usually inhabited caverns. Every traveller who goes to the Riviera, the old Ligurian shore, knows, but knows only by a passing glance, the Etang de Berre, that inland sea, blue as a sapphire, waveless, girt about by white hills, and perhaps he wonders that Toulon should have been selected as a naval port, when there was this one, deeper, and excavated by Nature to serve as a harbou

In the year 1866 the Prussian Army of the Elbe broke into Bohemia, when it was found that the inhabitants of a certain district had vanished along with their cattle and goods, leaving behind empty houses and stables. It had been the same during the Thirty Years' War, and again in the Seven Years' War, when the invaders found not a living soul, and contented themselves with destroying the crops and burning the villages and farms. Even the Government officials had disappeared. Whither had they gon

I have divided Refuges into two classes—those that have been burrowed under the soil, and those that open in the face of a cliff. Occasionally they run one into another, and yet they materially differ. The first have their entrances elaborately concealed, whereas the latter are bare to the face of day, and no concealment is possible or attempted. Those who had recourse to the first trusted in being able, should the entrance be discovered or betrayed, to defend themselves by various devices, wher

From a very early period in the Middle Ages—in fact from the dissolution of the Carlovingian dynasty—we find communities everywhere grouped about a centre, and that centre the residence of the feudal chief to whom the members of the community owed allegiance and paid certain dues, in exchange for which he undertook to protect his vassals from robbery and outrage. By the Edict of Mersen, in 847, every freeman was suffered to choose his own lord, whether the King or one of his vassals, and no vass

CLIFF CASTLES— Continued I took the third of the classes into which I have divided my subject of cliff castles, first of all; and now I shall take the others in the category. The Seigneurs were not greatly, if at all, to be distinguished from the Captains of the routiers in their mode of life and in their fortresses, save only this, that the latter were elected by their followers, and the former were on their hereditary estates and could demand the services of their vassals. In the matter of sco

When the periods of persecution of the early Christians had come to an end, and they were able in security to assemble for worship, two distinct types of Church contested for the supremacy—the Basilican and the Catacumbal. Even during the times before Constantine, when persecution was in abeyance, Christians had been accustomed to gather together for the Divine mysteries in private houses. But after that Christianity was recognised and favoured, the wealthy and noble citizens of Rome, Italy, and

There is an account in the Times' Correspondent's record of Colonel Younghusband's expedition to Lhasa that when read haunts the imagination. It is the description made by Mr. Landon of a Buddhist monastery, Nyen-de-kyl-Buk, where the inmates enter as little children and grow up with the prospect of being literally immured in a cave from which the light of day is excluded as well as the society of their fellow-men, there to spend the rest of their life till they rot. Horace may say:             

The early Syrian and Egyptian hermits would have become a sect of manichæan heretics but for the popularity of the profession and the Arian persecution. In quitting the world they cut themselves off from the churches. They no more took part in its assemblies, participated in the sacraments, nor observed the sacred seasons. Paul, the first hermit, deserted the society of men when aged fifteen, and lived till the age of a hundred and ten in solitude without ever having partaken of the Bread of Lif

The name of the outlaw, Humphrey Kynaston, who, with his horse, lived in the face of a precipice, is not likely speedily to be forgotten in Shropshire; his exploits are still matter of tradition, and the scenes of his adventures are yet pointed out. Humphrey was the son of Sir Roger Kynaston, of Hordley, near Ellesmere. The family derived from Wales and from the princes of Powys. Their arms were argent, a lion rampant sable. Sir Roger Kynaston had zealously embraced the side of the York faction.

Owing to the great kindness of Mr. Wm. Stevenson, author of "Bygone Nottinghamshire," I am able to give some additional matter that must be of interest, with which he has supplied me. (p. 32.) "Your account reminds me of a rock excavation of great extent with turns and windings on the old time 'Way to the Gallows,' in Nottingham, where a number of cave-dwellings existed down to a century ago. The last tenant was a sandman who stabled his ass in the cave behind. He passed the greater part of his