Vll 



bricks, bits of pottery, and gravel, formed the general mass. This 

 is by no means uncommon here, as it often happens that one floor 

 has been formed on the top of another, and at varying distances 

 apart. 



Now the season of 1852 was one of unusual wet, and Cirences- 

 ter, like other places, was then inundated with water, and an 

 examination of Human sites in this place demonstrates that the 

 a iiient floors, like too many of our modern ones, was just then 

 below the water level, and even at Chesterton Terrace there was 

 nearly a foot of water in the cellars, the floors of which are a little 

 below the level of the lower Roman floor just adverted to ; so that 

 the upper floor would be entirely out of the way even of a much 

 higher inundation than the present one, whilst a few inches more 

 ot water would have also covered the lower one. Prom these 

 notes, therefore, we seem justified in drawing the following con- 

 clusions : 



Firstly That Corinium, like Cirencester, suffered from occa- 

 sional inundations, and that the occurrence of one floor above 

 another in our Roman works, show how the antients remedied 

 the inconvenience, 



Secondly That these inundations were even deeper in antient 

 than in modern times. This we shall have no difficulty in under- 

 standing, if we consider the greater facilities these days offer for 

 carrying off water by draining and other improvements. 



And, lastly, many of the appearances about our Roman sites 

 seem to show that excess of water has been ofttimes repeated 

 during the last fifteen hundred years, though at very distant and 

 irregular periods. 



NOTE. The Notes upon which the above Paper was founded 

 were principally made in the wet season of 1852. 



