260 The Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting. 
the like. We find, all over Britain, similar remains; also thousands 
of inscribed stones, altars and various memorials. Roman inserip- 
tions are proverbially brief and terse, but the quantity of information 
obtained from them when brought together is very great. From 
them we learn all about the military occupation, and many curious 
facts about the religion that obtained; how the Romans, always 
tolerant, endeavoured to conciliate British prejudices by combining 
the national heathenism of Britain with their own. This, and a 
great deal more, of whieh we have no account, is gathered from the 
discoveries made by what I may call Pickaxe Archeology. It has 
sometimes been said that these diggings, however amusing, never 
bring anything to light that is of practical use. Mr. J. C. Bruce, 
in one of the archzological publications, took up this challenge and 
showed several instances in which we might save ourselves much 
trouble and expense by following Roman example. It would teach 
us the importance of good roads. Again, as to the warming of 
our houses. Coals and wood are a heavy item in housekeeping, 
because we persist in allowing two-thirds of the heat to go up the 
chimney. The Roman villas show us how, at a quarter of the ex- 
pense, they warmed by underground pipes. Our mortar, again, very 
often consists of a small allowance of lime, and a large one of useless 
road-dirt, and in a few years the walls want fresh pointing if not 
fresh building. The Roman mortar is so hard that it is broken with 
more difficulty than the brick or stone. A prisoner in an English 
gaol can sometimes pick his way out with an iron nail, but Roman 
mortar would have baffled him. Again, in building a brick arch, 
which we have always done with bricks of the same shape, filling up 
with mortar, it was only lately discovered, by some excavation of a 
barrelled drain, that the Romans used wedge-shaped bricks. It is 
only within a few years that we have insisted upon extra-mural in- 
terment in cemeteries. But near the city of Bath, I am informed 
that many Roman tombs have been discovered by the sides of the 
Roman ways leading out of the city, showing that they were before 
us in this wholesome improvement, even in our own country, fifteen 
hundred years ago. I do not say that they were ahead of us in 
everything, but that they were so in some things we know, and we 
