352 
At the depth of rather more than 20 feet from the surface, 
the natural ground level was attained, consisting of a compact 
dark yellow gritty sand, overlying gravel. Upon the surface 
of this sand the sculptured stone slab was found, and to the 
north of it a rude long hollow was scooped out, dipping from 
south to north at an angle of from 16° to 20°, containing the 
skeleton of ahuman being. The skull, with almost the whole 
of the bones, were thrown into the new excavation, and re- 
buried; but the femur and tibia of one leg, with the tibia of 
the other, fortunately preserved, are in my possession, and at 
the service of the British Museum. 
The stone slab itselfis rather of a friable oolite, probably 
Bath. Its dimensions are, 2 feet 4? inches long, 1 foot 103 
broad, and 4 inches thick. It is broken into four fragments; 
a fifth was thrown into one of the concrete trenches, but its 
loss is unimportant, as all the lower portion of the stone is but 
roughly hewn, in the very rudest manner, and was evidently 
inserted in the ground. 
The edge of the slab displays by the method of terminat- 
ing its tooled surface (i.e. all of the stone which was not 
buried) the angle of inclination at which this antique head- 
stone was pitched. This was of about 30°, the sculptured 
panel and front face of the stone making an obtuse angle of 
nearly 60° with the ground surface. 
The faces of the sculpture have been coloured with a deep 
tone of an almost black blue, still very perceptible in the ori- 
ginal. 
The cast which accompanies this communication may be 
relied upon as a faithful transcript of so much of the interest- 
ing monument as it includes. 
It may be remarked, that although the Runic inscription 
is considered incomplete by several English scholars, yet that 
no trace whatever of any further writing is to be discerned 
upon the slab, the finish and entire preservation of which lead 
to the certain inference that no additional inscription did at 
