394 PROFESSOR HUGHES 



buildings in extension of the College on this ground, in which 

 case we should have had a repetition of the conditions which 

 have produced that sequence of artificial deposits within our 

 college walls, which we are endeavouring to explain. 



There must have been rubbish pits belonging to any large 

 establishment, whether monastic or scholastic, but a study of 

 the arrangement and uses of various parts of the buildings 

 will often limit the possibilities in respect of the areas assigned 

 to such purposes, and, except by the accident of old relics 

 being dug up during alterations and again thrown in, we may 

 in this case take the stratigraphical order of the objects as 

 indicating their chronological succession. Not so in the case 

 of the oldest deposits on the early alluvial waste land, nor of 

 the transported material carried in to raise the ground, in 

 both of which objects of any age or association may occur 

 together. The large area finally occupied by a monastic or 

 scholastic establishment was not necessarily all levelled up at 

 once, but during every addition or adaptation the level of the 

 first buildings would be as far as possible maintained. 



The river silt did not run right up to the town, but the 

 gravel terrace sloped down to the alluvium and passed under 

 it, especially towards the north, and the lower part of this 

 gravel not only allowed the free passage of water down valley 

 from the higher ground, but was also filled by the river water 

 when backed up in floods so that the more the river was held 

 up by fords, bridges, locks, etc., the more necessary was it to 

 raise the ground artificially along the margin of the higher 

 ground first occupied by the town. The monastic and collegiate 

 buildings for which sites were given outside of the town west 

 of the High Street, crept gradually down over the gravel slope, 

 but even to this day they have not extended far over the 

 alluvium. St John's College has boldly thrown out its new 

 buildings across the river, and proved to its cost the difficulties 

 of building on the alluvium, and Trinity has spread from the 

 gravel slope over the bed of the stream, but the unsuitable 

 character of these river deposits for building upon has checked 

 the extension of the colleges over the " Backs." The low 

 ground sloping down from the west side of the town to the 



