I’m pleased with the news of the discovery of a runic record of a Norwegian expedition to Oklahoma in the 11th century. Why it should have gone round the Carolina coast and Florida and up to Oklahoma, not the most attractive of American states, I cannot imagine. But the Vikings were an odd people. The deciphering of the runes seems to have been extremely ingenious; and the fact that the runes are in code is also extremely interesting. Why the bishop put his record into cryptograms is even harder to understand than why Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, concealed his authorship of the plays attributed to Lord Oxford by Mr Looney. (I am no expert in Shakespearian cryptography, relying on the lucid description of it in Dr P. G. Wodehouse’s work, The Mulliner Omnibus, pp. 234 ff.)

In a letter to Dr Mead in 1738, Francis Wise discussed the location of Alfred's famous battle-ground of Ashdown and described it as ‘containing large tracts of down and sheep pasture where the great Western road passes at this day, being called the Rudge or Ridgeway’ (Wise, 1738). Sir Richard Colt-Hoare rode along the Ridgeway in 1815 and wrote ‘these ridgeways were the roads made use of by the earliest inhabitants of Britain as lines of communication between their different towns and villages. They generally followed the highest ridges of land on which also we find their habitations: they were not paved with stone and gravel as in later times by the Romans but their basis was the firm and verdant turf’ (Colt-Hoare, 1819). His description is the first itinerary of the route now followed with delight by thousands. He passed Wayland's Smithy, and Uffington Castle, following then with a long and speculative account of the battle of Ashdown. He was not immune to the enjoyment of a view. ‘Hitherto the ridgeway had afforded no attraction with respect to country or view, its chief interest was from a recollection of the important historical events which had transpired on its borders, but on proceeding eastwards the eye was continually amused by an extensive prospect over a rich vale extending to Oxford on the left, with numerous church turrets peeping forth amidst the dense foliage with which the country is overspread. The scenery at the right exhibited an open and cultivated extent of land. A few barrows occurred occasionally alongside the trackway but I did not see any other marks of ancient population.’

I have done some varied seafaring in different kinds of odd craft and so have some idea of the difficulties involved in earlier days. In the summer of 1925 I was at sea in a Fleetwood trawler, which was fishing the Ioo-fathom line from St Kilda to the Blaskets. On I July, we were off Galway Bay; it was a fairly calm day with a big Atlantic swell running. A three-man curragh from Inishmore (one of the Aran Islands) came alongside and the crew begged for fish.

Since the last war three new branches of archaeology have grown up in Great Britain. Two of these are now established and accepted divisions of the subject, with national societies devoted to their study and reputable journals for the more important work in their fields. The third has failed to establish itself and for many archaeologists remains no more than a curious oddity. Why has 'industrial archaeology' not received the scholarly recognition accorded medieval and post-medieval archaeology? Why has Industrial Archaeology not joined Medieval Archaeology and Post-Medieval Archaeology as an important outlet for archaeological research ? That these are questions in need of answer has now been recognized by at least some of those engaged in 'industrial archaeology' and it seems generally agreed that the subject is at a turning point, a 'teenage' stage, from which it can either advance or regress (e.g. Buchanan, 1970; Symonds, 1972; Harris, 1970; Hudson, 1971-73). In what direction it should advance is a problem that has yet to be solved.

The stone crosses at Ruthwell in Dum- friesshire and at Bewcastle in Cumberland are probably the most discussed pieces of sculpture in the British Isles (PLS. XLI-XLII). It is right that they should be, for they have aartistic content that is high by any standards, they wholly outclass any possible contemporaries in Western Europe, and they are among the earliest examples of a notable and long-lasting form of Saxon art. Moreover, they are not only of importance to the art-historian but to the historian as well, for they have qualities that tell us a great deal about the culture, the religious feelings and even the political development of the society that erected them. It is therefore a matter of more than ordinary concern to establish, as firmly as the evidence allows, their date and their origin. All but one of the major critics of the last forty years-J. Br~ndsted, Sir Alfred Clapham, Sir Thomas Kendrick, Mr Lawrence Stone and Mr Ralegh Radford-are agreed that they are of the late 7th century, or at the latest of the first decade of the 8th. Only W. G. Collingwood has proposed a different date, in the mid-late 8th century, and he has had no supporters.