SESSION 1893-94. xxxvii 



bedrooms, the old oak panelling, and the enormous stack of chimneys 

 with the passage which ho had had cut through the middle of it a 

 few years ago. 



On leaving th(> Priory a vote of thanks was accorded to Mr. and 

 Mrs. Sworder for their kind attention. 



Mr. Eansom then led the way to the site of the Homan buildings 

 and cemeterj- adjoining Great WymoniUcy Church, and gave some 

 particulars of an old enclosure of about twenty acres which once 

 existed here. It was to be traced, he said, by a bank which 

 encircles it, and it was probably given to a distinguished Roman 

 soldier on which to retire. Some years ago he excavated at one 

 comer of the estate, and found ample evidence of a Roman settle- 

 ment. Amongst other things he discovered the cemetery and the 

 rubbish-heap, from the former of which he obtained about forty 

 urns, and from the latter from twenty to thirty Roman coins and a 

 variety of culinary and other articles. 



Great WymoncUey Church was then entered ; it now presents 

 hut few features of interest, except the rood stairs. 



A walk of nearly two miles brought the party to the clay pits 

 near Hitchin Hill, where Mr. William Hill, F.G.S., gave an 

 account of his researches, which led him to the conclusion that 

 a large lake once existed at this spot. Overlying the Chalk, he 

 said, were beds of stony clay, sand, and gravel, deposited during 

 the Glacial period ; the gravel was evidently deposited by water 

 running with considerable velocity, and on the top of it was 

 a fresh-water deposit laid down under very still water, and he 

 concluded that it was the bed of a lake. Its extent to the west 

 was probably a quarter of a mile, to the north and east its limit 

 was defined by a boss of chalk distant a third of a mile, and it 

 probably extended a greater distance to the south-west, though 

 there was no evidence of its continuation in that direction. He 

 had found a great number of shells in this lake-bed, all being 

 fresh-water forms and of species still living in lakes and ponds. 

 An examination of the sandy loam under the microscope had 

 disclosed the presence of the seeds or spores of a fresh- water plant 

 (C'l/fira), and of the minute valves of four species of water-ilea 

 {JJaphnia). One species was thought to have been extinct, but it 

 had been discovered by Dr. Brady living in lochs in the north of 

 Scotland. This deposit passes down into a black calcareous loam, 

 again with shells, and with teeth of the elephant, which must have 

 been fairly abundant, bones and teeth of the bear, bones of the 

 rhinoceros, and antlers of a large stag, these relics being now in 

 the possession of Mr. W. Ransom. Evidence that pro-historic man 

 must have considered Hitchin to be a very eligible position for 

 a residence existed in the number of worked flints which are found 

 in the clay. The implements — rudely-shaped axes, knives, and 

 scrapers — belong to the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age, and form the 

 earliest record of the existence of man upon the earth. 



The meeting was very pleasantly brought to a conclusion with 

 a visit to Fairfield, Hitchin, the residence of Mr. Ransom, who 



