348 



Baths were mentioned twice plainly, and once somewhat obscurely, 

 the form he had just explained being the obscure one, but in the 

 two other cases it was as clear as could be, " hathu" the very same 

 word. As regards the originality of the poem, all he could say 

 was, if it was a translation, where was the original story ? None 

 such was known to him. So many things were wanted together — 

 a stone city, a copious stream of hot water, a Roman gamson ; and 

 if other towns where hot springs existed were taken into considera- 

 tion, for instance, Aix-la-Chapelle, Aix in Provence, or Dax in the 

 Pyrenees, the conditions did not apply. 



Note. — In connection with the above discussion it will be interesting to 

 recall the remarks of Mr. C. Moore, made after the reading of Mr. Earle's 

 paper on " Traces of the Early History of Bath and the neighbourhood," 

 Dec. 18th, 1867, which are so apposite as to be worth quoting, e,specially as 

 they do not appear in the Proceedings, though reported at the time ; they are 

 the following : — " Mr. Moore observed that it had been suggested by the.Rev. 

 J. Earle that there was no city here before the Roman occupation, and that 

 had brought to his remembrance a point that he wished to have cleared up, 

 viz., as to whether there was any city for a long interval after the Roman 

 occupation had ceased. With reference to this point he had been particularly 

 struck by what he had witnessed in the excavations on the site of the White 

 Hart Hotel. It there appeared that tlie whole of the Roman foundations had 

 been filled up with a kind of alluvial deposit or peat, which seemed to indicate 

 that after the Roman occupation there must have been an interval in which 

 certainly on the site of the White Hart no person lived. It must have been 

 a regular swamp, for the labourers working there had grubbed out great pieces 

 of trees and wood, and this swamp must have covered the whole of the 

 foundations of the Roman city. 



Mr. Earle's paper was followed by a contribution from the Rev. 

 W. S. Shaw, of " Notes on the History of Twerton, from the earliest 

 records to the present time." (Vide p. 270.) 



In retiirning a vote of thanks to Mr. Shaw for his paper, the 

 Chairman expressed a wish that the history of every parish was 

 worked out in the same way. 



As it was agreed at the Quarterly Meeting in April that this 

 should be the last Evening Meeting for the session, the papers that 

 ought to have been read on April 19th were postponed. The 

 Winter Session was to have commenced on Dec. 13th. Owing, 

 however, to the dangerous illness of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, 

 it was thought to be inore consistent with the wide-spread feeling 



