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Show 182 BUIUAL OF THE REMAINS CnAl'. IV. 23 incltos thick of blackish earth, including many large stones. Beneath this was a thin bed of very black mould (C), then a layer of earth full of fragments of mortar (D), and then another thin bed (about 3 inches thick) (F) of very black mould, which rested on the undisturbed subsoil (F) of firm, yellowish, ar<Yillaccous sand. The 23-inch bed (B) was b probably made ground, as this would have brought up the floor of the room to a level with that .of the atrium. The two thin beds of black mould at the bottom of the trench evidently marked two former land-·surfaces. Outside the walls of the northern room, many bones, ashes, oyster-shells, broken pottery and an entire pot were subsequently found at a depth of 16 inches beneath the surface. The second trench was dug on the western or lower side of the villa : the mould was here only 6~ inches in thickness, and it rested on a ma::;s of fine earth full of stones, broken tiles and fragments of mortar, 34 inches in thickness, beneath which was the undisturbed sand. Most of this earth had probably been washed down from the upper part of the field, and the fragments of CHAP. IV. OF ANCIENT BUILDINGS. 183 stones, tiles, &c., must have come from the immediately adjoining ruins. It appears at first 8ight a surprising fact that this field of light andy soil should have been cultivated and ploughed during many years, and that not a vestige of these buildings should have been discovered. No one even suspected that the remains of a Roman villa lay hidden close beneath the surface. But the fact is less surprising when it is known that the field, as the bailiff believed, had never been ploughed to a greater depth than 4 inches. It is certain that when the land was first ploughed, the pavement and the surrounding broken walls must have been covered by at least 4 inches of soil, for otherwise the rotten concrete floor would have been scored by the plough hare, the tesserro torn up, and the tops of the old walls knocked down. When the concreto and tesserre were first cleared over a space of 14 by 9 ft., the :floor which was coated with trodden-down earth exhibited no signs of having been penetrated by worms; and although the overlying iine mould closely resembled that which in many |