NOTES ON DUG-OUT BOATS. 



165 



bow to bow (for both ends were exactly alike) was 17 feet ; the 

 width outside abeam between 24 and 25 inches, and so continued 

 with the exception of the last 12 inches of both ends; these sloped 

 inward 8 inches, the ends being straight (not rounded) and 

 about 8 inches wide. The sides and bottom were flat and 

 rectangular. At the thinnest part above the sides were little 

 more than half-an-inch thick, but about 3 inches below at the 

 junction with the bottom. And the bottom thinned to less than 

 2 inches in the middle. There was a peculiar arrangement at 

 each end, perhaps a kind of raised seat. There was no keel, no 

 ribs or stretchers at bottom, and no rowlocks. Nothing was 

 found with the boat. 



V- •E. K 



fieale of fe.e.t 



?* 



Section showing the position of the Dug-out Canoe in the Thames Marshland. 

 Drawn by F. C. J. Spurrell, 1878. 



Mr. Spurrell speaks of the old peat surface at the spot 

 where the boat was found as that on which Romans lived and 

 died. " Roman black pottery (I saw some Samian) and food 

 refuse, with tiles, were found between 8 and 9 feet below the 

 surface (which was 5ft 6in. O.D.) on and in the top of a layer of 

 peat ; this was covered by tidal mud."' The section reproduced 

 here, he describes as " showing that in the peat layer a stream 



1 " Early Sites and Embankments on the Margins of the Thames Estuary," Archceol. 

 JournaU vol. xlii. (1885). 



