72 
silver, and eight hundred and thirty coins from Augustus to 
Magnus Maximus. The vase was inscribed DEAE SEQVANAE 
RVFVS DONAVIT. 
It is only lately that in clearing out a well near one of the 
stations on the line of the Roman wall in Northumberland 
(Procolitia), a vast number of coins of different dates, and all 
Roman, together with other dedications to the Goddess Coventina, 
were discovered, and figures of the Nymphs were also found. 
The well on examination proved to be in the centre of a Temple.* 
At Chester a large altar, inscribed on two sides NYMPHIS ET 
FONTIBVS, was found not far from a spring which is supposed 
to have supplied the city with water in Roman times. 
It might have been supposed that considering the importance 
of the river Thames, some such memorials of river worship as we 
have mentioned would have been found at its source, or if 
destroyed, some would have been recorded. But none such are 
mentioned by Camden or by any local topographer. 
When the Archeological Association visited the Seven Springs 
in 1869,t and examined the spot, all that could be discovered was 
a single stone of very ancient date, and this marks the point 
known as the “Thames Head,” where the Seven Springs take 
their rise, but these are now nearly drained by the pumping 
engine already mentioned, which conveys the water into the 
Severn and Thames Canal. The basin formed by the hills 
around, where the springs rise, is therefore now dry, though 
formerly a morass. 
It is difficult to believe that so noble and so important a river 
as the Thames should not have been honoured at its source 
equally with the Seine, and less important rivers, but the same 
* See Proceedings of Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, paper by 
J. Clayton, Esq. 
+ For an account of the visit of the Archzological Association see Journal 
Vol. xxv., p. 283, 1869; also a Paper on the Source of the Thames and its 
Nomenclature, by G. T. Wright, F.S.A, ° 
