VOL. XVI. (3) EXCURSION—CIRENCESTER 209 
Mr Upton mentioned that he had recently visited an exposure of 
Forest Marble not far from Kemble Station, and had made a collection 
for microscopic examination. The result was that he found evidence 
of a fresh-water deposit. There were nucules of Chara, and ostra- 
cods, which agreed with those found in the Purbeck Beds, but there 
was an absence of foraminifera. [L.R.] 
ARCHAOLOGY 
The next halt was at ‘‘ Thames Head,” by the side of the Roman 
Foss Way. Here many Members for the first time saw what well- 
known authorities hold to be the source of the Thames, or, as Leland 
quaintly puts it, ‘‘ The very head of Isis.” When, asked Mr Butt 
from his place in the brake, was the Thames first known as Isis? In 
all old Saxon charters the name was ‘‘ Thames,” and in support of 
this the speaker quoted from the Saxon Chronicle. In 1016 Canute 
passed over the Thames into Cricklade. One of the oldest streets in 
Oxford was originally Thames Street, and the name Isis was certainly 
unknown to our ancestors. Leland came before Camden, and it 
would seem that he might have been the first to give the river its 
classical name. 
Arriving in Cirencester, visits were paid to the ‘‘ Bull Ring,” the 
Town Museum, the late Mr Wilfrid Cripp’s Museum, and the ‘‘ City 
Bank,” Mr Christopher Bowly and Mr John Sawyer acting as guides. 
Put into chronological order, the information they gave upon the 
subjects seen makes up an interesting story of the old town. 
Cirencester first appears upon the page of written history with 
the Roman invasion in the middle of the first century. The Second 
Roman Legion, under Aulus Plautius, captured a British settlement 
with a Celtic name, Caer-cori, or Caer-coryn, planted a garrison 
there, and then began a career of conquest which in course of a few 
years brought southern Britain under the imperial yoke of Rome. 
Meantime Caer-coryn, Latinised into Corinium (now Cirencester), 
grew in importance as a centre of Roman traffic. It is on the line of 
the Foss Way, the great Roman road which runs from Axminster to 
Lincoln, and is remarkable for its direct course, for in the whole of 
its length (nearly 200 miles) no part is more than six miles away 
from a straight line. The Ermine Street, which runs from London 
through Silchester to Gloucester, intersects the Foss Way at Ciren- 
cester ; and a third Roman road, the Akeman Street, ran from 
Cirencester through Alcester to two other Roman highways, the 
Iknield Way and the Watling Street. Important as a centre of 
communication, the town also grew in power as a centre of Roman 
life. It had a basilica—a building answering the purposes of a market 
and magistrates’ court—nearly as large as Gloucester Cathedral ; it 
had official residences, whose beauty is attested by some of the most 
artistic tesselated pavements that have been found in Britain; it had 
an amphitheatre, where from time to time rank and fashion gathered 
to witness sport and games; it had the culture and most of the 
