(ancient) ROMAN BATHS IN BATH. 135 



to A.D. 440. Coins have been found with Nero's superscription, 

 and also with those of Trajan and Hadrian, in various portions of 

 our city. Wright, in his Bath Guide, states that probably a.d. 45 

 witnessed the arrival of a detachment of the 2nd. legion to be 

 stationed in this city, and he further states that in a.d. 120, Hadrian 

 crossed over to Britain with the 9th. legion, and installed a detach- 

 ment of Roman soldiers in Bath. He alleges that the social and 

 military works of the Roman conquerors were probably completed 

 in A.D. 50, after two or three years' arduous labour, and he espe- 

 cially refers to the splendid Roman baths, 20 feet below the present 

 level of the city, as among the constructed works of that date. 

 After the evacuation of the city by the Romans, the noble handi- 

 work of these foreigners probably remained until a.d. 577, when 

 the Britons were overthrown by their Saxon conquerors, and it is 

 interesting to trace the subsequent character of the site, which only 

 last year was so rich in organic remains, but which remains have 

 been carted away to form a soil in some portions of the Royal 

 Institution Gardens. After corresponding with Dr. Partridge, of 

 the Stroud Microscopical Society, that gentleman visited the site 

 of the bath, and received from me a section of the mud bank. 

 He thereupon consulted Mr. Witchell, of Stroud, a Fellow of 

 the Geological Society, and his report upon the character of the 

 site and the nature of the deposit is as follows : — 



" In the deposits which immediately overlie the Roman tiles, 

 the physical condition of the valley of the Avon, following the 

 period of the Roman occupation, is clearly shown. It appears, 

 that on the departure of the Romans the country lapsed into its 

 primitive state ; the bed of the river, no longer kept in order, 

 became dammed up by fallen trees, landslips, and the like, and the 

 place where a high civilisation had existed became a shallow lake. 

 The torrential streams of winter washed down from the neigh- 

 bouring hills the surface-mould and decaying vegetation into the 

 bottom of the valley, where it became deposited as mud, of which 

 it formed successive layers mixed with the river-sediment and 

 fresh-water shells. As a considerable portion of the strata of the 

 hills around Bath consists of ' Fuller's earth,' it is probable that 

 much of the firm mud, which appears to be from 5 to 6 feet thick, 

 was derived from the washing, by rain, of the ' Fuller's earth ' 



