VOL. XIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 215 



tending highly to illustrate the subject in hand. Chap. 8, contains many 

 remarks about the excellency and goodness of the wells of Modena. 



With the book translated, are published several observations and experiments 

 by the translator, Dr. Rob. St. Clair, who formerly was operator, and used to 

 try experiments for the Hon. Mr. Boyle. 



On some Roman Antiquities found in Yorkshire. By Mr. Thoresby. 



N°234,p. 738. 



Leeds, Oct. 30, 1697. — I have added to my Roman curiosities two entire 

 urns, both of the blueish grey clay, but different forms, with some of the burnt 

 bones, and two other vessels of the red clay. The lesser of them is almost in 

 the form of the Roman simpulum or giittus, and by the narrowness of the neck 

 seenjis rather to have been a kind of iacrymatory, or vessel for some kind of 

 liquid matter than for ashes. The other was part of an aqueduct, and is turned 

 in the form of a screw on the inside, and has a narrow neck at one end to put 

 into the open end of the next, and several of these, each a foot long and four 

 inches broad, were found thus placed in the Roman burying place at York, by 

 the river side, out of Boutham bar, which our learned dean, Dr. Gale, tells 

 me, signifies burning in the British language. And it was doubtless the place 

 the Romans made use of to that end, as appears by the great number of urns 

 frequently found there, when they dig the clay for bricks ; and that it continued 

 the place of their sepulture, after that custom of burning, introduced in the 

 tyrannous dictatorship of Sylla, was abolished, is evident by a remarkable 

 hypogseum without any urns in it, discovered the last winter ; it was large 

 enough to contain two or three corpses, and was paved with bricks near 2 inches 

 thick, 8 in breadth and length ; on which was a second pavement, of the same 

 Roman bricks, to cover the seams of the lower, and to prevent the working up 

 of vermin. But those that covered the vault were the most remarkable, being 

 above 2 feet square, and of a proportionable thickness. I have also a third sort 

 of Roman bricks, which I discovered in my survey of this parish, in the ruins 

 of Kirkstall abbey, 2 miles from Leeds, which come the nearest to those men- 

 tioned by Vitruvius, being 8 inches broad, and almost double that length. I 

 have also two sorts of chequered pavements, one of about 3 inches square, the 

 other (of those found at Aldbrough) not above half or one-fourth of an inch, 

 and of diflferent colours, &c. I took the inscription below the statue, which is 

 of the standard-bearer of the Qth legion. 



