PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SlQ 



fosse and Barnby on the Moor, 6 miles from York, in the sand-hills, or rising 

 grounds, where the warren now is. The other Roman pottery on the sand- 

 hills at Santon, not far from Brig in Lincolnshire. In the first place I have 

 found broken pieces of urns, slag, and cinders. At the latter place there are 

 yet remaining some of the very furnaces, whose ruins I take to be some of those 

 metae or sandy hillocks. It is remarkable, that both the above-mentioned pot- 

 teries are within less than a mile of the Roman road, or military high-way. 



The Roman urns above described differ in these particulars from what pots 

 are now usually made among us. 1 . That they are not at all glazed with lead, 

 which perhaps is a modern invention. 2. That a far greater quantity of sand is 

 used than clay; which thing alone made it worth their while, to bring their 

 clay to the sand-hills. 3. That they were baked either with more leisure after 

 long and thorough drying, or enclosed within certain coffins to defend them from 

 the immoderate contact of the flames: which I am induced to believe, because 

 there seem to be fragments of such things to be found. It is certain the natural 

 colour of the clay is not altered by burning : so that both the degrees of heat 

 and manner of burning might be different. And one of these pot-sherds as I, 

 have heard, baked over again in our ovens, will become red. As to the two 

 last kind of urns, it is likely the first of them with their particles of mica in it, 

 were made of a sandy blue clay, which abounds among the western mountains 

 of Yorkshire, and particularly at Carleton, not far from Ickley, a Roman station. 

 The red urns seem to have been their master-piece, wherein they shovved the 

 greatest art, and seemed to glory most, and to eternize their names on them. 

 I have seen great varieties of embossed work on them. And lastly, the elegant 

 manner of glazing is far neater indeed, and more durable than our modern way 

 of leading, which is apt to crack, both with wet and heat : and at the fire it is 

 certainly unwholesome, by reason of the fumes lead usually emits, being a quick 

 vaporable metal. This ancient glazing seems to have been done by the brush or 

 dipping ; for both inside and outside of the urn are glazed, and that before the 

 baking. And something of the materials of it seems to be remembered by 

 Pliny, lib. 36, c. 1 Q. Fictilia ex bitumine inscripta non delentur. The paint- 

 ing of pots with bitumen is indelible. And again, Tingi solidas ex bitumine 

 statuas, lib. 35, c. 15, the bitumen he says sinks into the very stones and pots, 

 which is something more than glazing. 



The great plenty of these urns found in many parts of England, seems to 

 argue them also of English manufacture, but where I cannot guess, unless 

 wrought at the bole mines, of which clay alone they seem to be made in Cleve- 

 land, for that the barren tract of land called Blackmoor was well known to the 

 Romans, the jet rings taken up with these urns sufficiently testify. Now jet 



