DUN. 103 



We might have expected many other monuments of Roman 

 date, for Danum was the quarters of the Prefect of Crispinian 

 Horse under the Dux Britanniarum, in the last years of Imperial 

 sway in Britain. 



The old church of Doncaster is a rich and elegant example of 

 perpendicular English architecture. 



From Doncaster toward Thome the river runs in a flat district, 

 in which its course appears to have varied much. At present 

 after passing the little town of Thome (where Roman remains 

 occur), the river turns north, for a few miles, and receives the 

 Went from the west. It then flows eastward by an artificial cut 

 to the new and thriving port of Goole, on the Ouse. This cut 

 was made by Vermuyden the engineer, and from him it is named 

 the Dutch River. 



Before the making of this cut the Dun flowed northward into 

 the Aire near Snaith, and the old channel is yet traceable, 

 though much filled up : when a boy I have crossed it by bridges. 



But this deviation of the river by art seems to have been pre- 

 ceded by others effected by nature. We find on the maps in- 

 deed between Thome and the Trent, an old winding river 

 channel called ' The Old Dun/ and this channel appears fairly 

 traced from the north side of Hatfield Chace down to the out- 

 fall of the Trent at Adlingfleet, being the county boundary. 



Southward of this point the same winding course continues, 

 and is called ' The Old Idle/ this being also the county bound- 

 ary. If the Dun could be supposed to have ever flowed from 

 Thome by the line now taken by the Keadby Canal, this now 

 somewhat puzzling part of the map would become intelligible. 

 Such variations are by no means uncommon on rivers which flow 

 through low marshy districts, and receive high tides, and great 

 inundations from the upland. 



Hatfield Chace is a great peat marsh; Thorne Waste, a similar 

 expanse. Both are now drained by artificial means, and in the 

 excavations appeared the roots and stems of innumerable oak- 

 trees, some apparently cut down with axes and wedges, others 



