126 PAPERS, ETC. 



recognlsed as coarse Roman wäre. I of course began to 

 dio" lipon the spot, and within an area the breadth of whicli 

 was not more than five or six yards, we found similar 

 fragments of pottery, enough to fill several baskets ; 

 upwards of 200 coins of the later empire ; a great many 

 glass beads, and fragments of bronze ornaments, 



Now had these Roman remalna been found at the 

 bottom of one of the holes, or had the pottery been soat- 

 tered over the whole area of the fortress, as is the case 

 with that of British manufacture, I own my theory would 

 have been much shaken ; but they were quite at the sur- 

 ftice — so much so, that when the turf was taken up, coins 

 and beads were hanging in the roots of the grass ; and the 

 coins were such as there is reason to suppose were in cir- 

 culation some centuries after the Romans had leffc the 

 islaud ; and I see no reason for doubting that they were 

 the property of some Romanized Briton, who had sought 

 refuge within the ramparts at the time of Ceawlin's 

 irruption. 



But perhaps the most interesting discovery of the year 

 remalns to be mentioned. In Mr. Atkins's plan* of the 

 fort and its outworks, many triangulär platforms are 

 marked, which he supposes were used for slingers ; and I 

 confess that when he first mentioned them to me, I thought 

 there was a great deal of imaginatiou in his idea ; but upon 

 Clearing away some of the rubble from the face of the 

 rampart on the west side of the main entrance, I dis- 

 covered a peculiarity in its construction Avhich certainly 

 confirms Mr. Atkins's opinion in a great degree. In- 

 stead of being, as I expected it to prove, a piain batter- 

 ing wall of dry masonry, I find that the whole face of the 

 rampart is composed of a series of platforms, about three 



* Proceedini^s for 1851, p, 64. 



