243 



subject. Ovdng also to a statement made at one of the 

 Quarterly Meetings of the danger lest some of the interesting 

 Roman work lately uncovered at the Baths should be interfered 

 with and obscured by the new buildings in process, your 

 Secretary was empowered to present the following memorial to 

 the Town Council : — " The Committee of the Bath Natural 

 History and Antiquarian Field Club having been credibly 

 informed that a wall has lately been built intersecting some of 

 the Roman work recently uncovered, respectfully beg the Mayor 

 and Corporation to make such structural arrangements in 

 the new work as that any destruction or concealment of 

 the Roman work by plaster or otherwise may be avoided, in 

 order that the public may have free access to, and free inspec- 

 tion of, the valuable system of Baths prevailing at the Roman 

 period. This was presented by your Secretary on Tuesday, 

 November 23rd. 



The Inscribed Leaden Tablet found in the Roman Bath. 

 As every reading and every notice of this Table must be of 

 importance and of value to local archaeologists, a record of such 

 notices may well find a place in our Proceedings. Two new 

 readings, which will accordingly be acceptable, having recently 

 appeared, they are here, with the kind permission of the authors, 

 produced. 



But just lately, in the volume of the Archseological Assocation for 

 1886, Mr. W. de Gray Birch, F.S.A., after remarking that the 

 characters on the tablet appear to be a mixture of cursive and rustic 

 letters, assigns the date to a period rangiug from the second to the 

 fifth century after Christ. Mr. Birch considers that the reading 

 should be from left to right as usual, but that every word is written or 

 inscribed in reversed order of the letters, a manner quite unique. AH 

 other readers have begun at the right-hand side of the first line, and 

 so on each line consecutively from right to left ; but that the reading 

 should be from left to right is clear, as the last line starts from the left 

 and finishes half way across towards the right. 



