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Show 220 BURIAL OF TilE REMAINS CuAP. IV. The nature of the beds immediately · beneath the vegetable mould in some of the sections is rather perplexing. We see, for instance, in the section of an excavation in a grass meadow (Fig. 14), which sloped from north to south at an angle of 3° 40', that the mould on the upper side is only six inches and on the lower side nine inches in thiclcness. But this mould lies on a mass (25~ inches in thickness on the upper side) '' of "dark brown mould," as described by Mr. Joyce, " thickly interspersed with small " pebbles and bits of tiles, which pre ent a "corroded or worn appearance." The state of this dark-coloured earth is like that of a field which has long been ploughed, for the earth thus becomes intermingled with stones and fragments of all kinds which have been much exposed to the weather. If during the course of many centuries this grass meadow and the other now cultivated fields have been at times ploughed, and at other times left as pasture, the nature of the ground in the above section is rendered intelligible. For worms will continually have brought up fine earth from below, which will have been stirred CrrAP. IV. OF ANCIENT BUILDINGS. 221 up by the plough whenever the laud was cultivated. But after a time a greater thickness of fine earth will thus have been accumulated than could be reached by the plough; and a bed like the 25!-inch 1na s, in Fig. 14, will have been formed beneath the superficial mould, which latter will have been brought to the surface within more recent times, and have been well sifted by the worms. Wr~xet~r, Sltropsltire.-The old Roman city of Uncon1um was founded in the early part of the second century, if not before this date· and it was destroyed, according to Mr~ Wright, probably between the 1niddle of the fourth and fifth century. The inhabitants were massacred, and skeletons of women were found in the hypocausts. Before the year 1859, the sole remnant of the city above ground, was a portion of a massive wall about 20 ft. in height. The surroundinoo-land undulates slightly, and has long been under cultivation. It had been noticed that the corn-crops ripened prematurely in certain narrow lines, and that the snow remained unmelted in certain places longer than in others. |