58 THE EXCAVATIONS 



Conway and Mr. Ilopkinson. Tiie result is described by 

 the excavators as "on the whole disappointing." Traces 

 of the road that must (judging from other plans) have run 

 along the W. of the building were met with, and frag- 

 ments of tiles scattered about seemed to suggest that the 

 tiled floor, a portion of which was found by Mr. Garstang 

 in section 160 may have extended in this direction. " Be- 

 low this level there was nothing but a fine, closely trodden 

 dark brown mixture of clay and sand, permeated with very 

 small fragments of pottery, and averaging about a foot 

 deep, and beneath it was the natural light-brown wet 

 boulder clay of the site." The finds included nothing but 

 a few glass counters and an earthenware strainer, which 

 latter was found under a mass of charcoal, which was one 

 of several indications of fires met with. Xear one of the 

 layers of charcoal was found a large lump of slag. Con- 

 cerning this Professor Boyd Dawkins writes me : " The 

 iron slag implies the working of iron. ... It may belong 

 to the Prehistoric Iron Age — the same age as the Beehive 

 Querns. I have met with it in the lake village of Glaston- 

 bury, and in the prehistoric centres of Northampton, 

 Lewes, Hod, and elsewhere. On the other hand, it may 

 be post-Roman." The discovery (March, 1906) in one of 

 these sections of what is described as a portion of an oak 

 window frame (a measured drawing of which Mr. Hamnett 

 sends me) suggests that, as the soil preserves the oak, we 

 may yet recover some of the wooden fittings of the build- 

 ings. The recovery of the small finds is the result of 

 much patient labour, especially as the soil is difficult. 

 Thus the nine small weights which were found together 

 in section 67 were all collected within a square yard. The 

 small figure of a horse was found by Mr. Hamnett in 

 section 81, but it was only after several hours' search that 

 he found the tiny ephippiujn belonging to it, which, as is 



