VOL. XXV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 2^1 



holes alike, one on each side, cut through for a cross passage, to disperse the 

 heat among them all. 



Concerning the forementioned HypocaiLst. By Dr, John Harwood, F. R. S. 



N° 306, p. 2228. 



Wroxeter was one of the most considerable military stations or colonies the 

 Romans had in this island : the city wall, as appears from a survey taken by 

 Mr. Lyster, was not much less than 3 miles in circumference ; and it is not 

 improbable, but that it was founded by Suetonius Paulinus, or after by Agri- 

 cola, in their march to subdue Mona, now Anglesey: vide Baxter's Glossarium 

 Antiquitatum Britannicarum. Sir Christ. Wren discovered the remains of such 

 another hypocaust, when they were laying the foundation of the king's house 

 at Winchester. And Mr. Christ. Hunter in his Trans. N° 278, gave an ac- 

 count of an antiquity of this kind dug up in Yorkshire. Also Mr. Edward 

 Lhwyd, in his additions to Camden, takes notice of another discovered at 

 Kaerhyn in Caernarvonshire. And Mr. Camden himself mentions an hypocaust 

 discovered at Hope in Flintshire, an account of which is to be met with in his 

 Britannia, p. 688, of the English addition. 



On the Hypocaust of the Ancients, By Mr. Baxter. N° 306, p. 2232. 



The ancients had two sorts of hypocausts ; the one called by Cicero, vapo- 

 rarium, and by others, laconicum, or sudatio, which was a large sweating bath ; 

 in which there were tria vasaria ahena, called caldarium, tepidarium, and frigi- 

 darium, from the water contained in them. The other sort of hypocaust is 

 not so distinctly treated by antiquaries: it was a sort of fornax, or kiln, to warm 

 their winter parlours. This hypocausis was called alveus, and fornax : and the 

 man that tended the fire fornacator. The tubuli seem to have been contrived 

 to convey away the smother, that otherwise would choke the fornacator. 

 This kind of stove seems to be graphically described by P. Statius in Balneo 

 Hetrusci, 



Ubi languidus ignis inerrat 



^dibus, et tenuem volvunt hypocausta vaporem. 



The terrace floor is called by Vetruvius, testudo. Of the terrace Argol has 

 these words : testudines sunt pavimenta sub quibus fornax ardet. And, by the 

 bye, I take the word stove to be derived from sestus, quasi sestuvium ; there 

 wanting hitherto a probable etymon. 



p p 2 



