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Museum at Newport. Another interesting detail in connection 
with these houses is the preservation of the wall plaster in 
some of the rooms. We have in fact been able to recover not 
only the colour scheme, but also in some cases the pattern of 
the decoration, which represents architectural features such 
as pilasters painted in perspective. In connection with these 
houses a large number of wells have been dug out, showing that 
they were amply supplied with water. In addition to these 
wells, there were found the remains of lines of wooden pipes, 
which were connected by iron collars. These seem to indicate 
that in addition to the water from the wells, water may have 
been brought in to the city from the hills on the north. 
Among the public buildings which have come to light one 
of the most interesting is the amphitheatre which is situated, 
contrary to the usual custom, inside the city walls. The arena, 
which is elliptical in shape, was bounded by a stone wall. 
The entrance at the east end still remains, but there are no 
traces of the seating structure, which in all probability was 
of wood. 
In the centre of the city we discovered two years ago the 
Forum with the Basilica on the north side. The latter con- 
sisted of a central nave with two aisles separated from it no 
doubt by rows of columns. The south aisle was remarkable 
in that it was open to the Forum. Underneath the Forum and 
Basilica there was found a drain or sewer built of remarkably 
massive masonry. Part of this as well as of the walls of the 
Basilica is still open for inspection. The Basilica itself showed 
signs of having been rebuilt at possibly two different dates. 
In this respect it does not differ from the gates or the houses. 
The gates show undoubted traces of re-building, and have 
also been blocked up in much the same way as the gates of 
some of the stations on Hadrian’s wall. The re-building of 
the houses has presented one of the most difficult problems 
that we have had to solve, for nearly every house shows signs 
of reconstruction at two or three different periods. This is 
not remarkable when we remember that the period of occupa- 
tion certainly lasted as long as 300 years. 
During the summer of 1908 we were occupied in exploring 
the buildings lying just to the east of the Forum on the north 
side of the high road. Here. we found 4 or possibly 5 separate 
houses, some of which had apparently been used as shops. In 
front of one of these houses or shops were three stone bases 
which had apparently carried pillars to support a roof which 
