200 BURIAL OF THE REMAINS Chap. IV 



337 a.d. was found. My son William visited 

 the place before the excavations were com- 

 pleted ; and he informs me that most of the 

 floors were at first covered with much rubbish 

 and fallen stones, having their interstices 

 completely filled up with mould, abounding 

 as the workmen said, with worms, above 

 which there was mould without any stones. 

 The whole mass was in most places from 3 

 to above 4 ft. in thickness. In one very 

 large room the overlying earth was only 

 2 ft. 6 in. thick ; and after this had been re- 

 moved, so many castings were thrown up 

 between the tiles that the surface had to 

 be almost daily swept. Most of the floors 

 were fairly level. The tops of the broken- 

 down walls were covered in some places by 

 only 4 or 5 inches of soil, so that they were 

 occasionally struck by the plough, but in 

 other places they were covered by from 13 

 to 18 inches of soil. It is not probable that 

 these walls could have been undermined by 

 worms and subsided, as they rested on a 

 foundation of very hard red sand, into which 

 worms could hardly burrow. The mortar, 

 however, between the stones of the walls of 



