290 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [^ANNO l706. 



the small tubes, which never had been wetted, were drawn to the upper part of 

 the receiver by the moveable wire. Then the air being exhausted, the tubes 

 were caused to descend, by the same wire that drew them up, till their lower 

 ends were plunged just under the surface of the tinged liquid; where they no 

 sooner arrived, than the water rose in each of them a considerable height above 

 its surface in the glass, and higher in the smaller tubes than in the larger ; and 

 would retain such a quantity as voluntarily arose in them, if I may call it so, 

 notwithstanding their lower orifices were drawn out of the water. Upon ad- 

 mitting the air again, they continued just the same as in vacuo. I found, by 

 plunging tubes of several sizes in the tinged fluid, that so much of it would 

 remain suspended in them, when taken out of it, as it would in such tubes, 

 when plunged, be elevated above the surface of the stagnant fluid. I have 

 likewise since observed, on bending some small tubes by the flame of a candle, 

 in the manner of syphons, that it would require the orifice of the longer leg 

 to be at least so far below the surface of the stagnant water, as that water in 

 the same tube would spontaneously ascend in it, before it would run. 



' f • ■ ' 



Of a Roman Sudatory, or Hypocamty found at IVroxeter in Shropshire, Anno 



j 1701. By Mr. Thomas Lyster, N" 306, p. 2226. 



About 40 perches north of a ruinous wall, called the Old Work of Wroxeter, 

 once Uriconium, a famous city in Shropshire, is a piece of arable land, a small 

 square parcel, which was observed to be barren, and not to be improved by the 

 best manure. On digging, there were discovered several bottoms of old walls, 

 buried in their own rubbish, as are often found in those fields; in one of which, 

 at the western corner of the said unfruitful spot of land, there was found a 

 little door place, which led into a square room, walled about, and floored under 

 and over, with some ashes and earth in it. This, as some suppose, was built 

 in former times, for a sudatory or sweating house for Roman soldiers ; being 

 set with 4 rows of small brick pillars, 8 inches square, and laid in a strong sort 

 of very fine red clay; each pillar being founded on a foot square quarry of 

 brick; and upon the head of every pillar was fixed a large quarry of 2 feet 

 square, almost as hard as flint, as most of those Roman bricks are, and within 

 as red as scarlet, and as fine as chalk. These pillars were to support a double 

 floor, made of very strong mortar, mixed with coarse gravel, and bruised or 

 broken bricks: the first of these floors was laid upon the large quarries, and, 

 when dry, the second floor was laid upon it. But first there was a range of 

 tunnel bricks, fixed with iron cramps up to the wall within, having their lower 

 ends level with the under sides of the broad quarries, and their upper ends level 

 wi|h, the surface of the upper floor ; and every tunnel had 2 opposite mortice- 



