42 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY. 



ACHATINA ACICULA IN A ROMAN CEMETERY 

 AT VENTIMIGLIA, FFALIAN RIVIERA. 



By Rev. J. E. SOMERVILLE, M.A., B.D. 



(Read before the Conchological Society) 



Ventimiglia is the frontier town of the Itahan Riviera. It 

 dates back to the remote past. Through it ran the Via JuUa 

 Augusta (still traceable for long distances) by which Roman 

 legions and all the traffic between Italy and Gaul for centuries 

 passed. Hannibal and his troops came this way, and indeed 

 the route is one that has been followed for ages, as far back indeed 

 as those of prehistoric man. Of Roman remains there are many 

 in the neighbourhood. Roman milestones form pillars and 

 even the bases of fonts in its churches. About a mile to the 

 east the benches of a theatre may be seen peeping out from the 

 sand, the rest being buried beneath a maccaroni manufactory. 

 Hard by is a Roman cemetery, the tombs of which were dis- 

 covered by a man while digging his vegetable garden. Since 

 then very many objects have been unearthed from the graves. 

 Rude pieces of pottery and the more elegant Samian ware are 

 plentiful as well as articles of glass, patarae, jars, cups, large 

 vases containing bones, and an abundance of lachrymatories 

 and what appears to be little bottles for unguents or perfumes. 

 Nearly all are of blue-green glass, some, however, are yellow 

 and some red, but all show the opalescent hue from the decom- 

 position of the surface, while some appear to have had the interior 

 gilded. One of these little bottles, of an elegant globular form, 

 had stood in my room for some months just as it had come 

 from the ground. One day, fearing the weight of earth it con- 

 tained might occasion damage, I carefully removed some of the 

 dry hardened earth. Among the particles I noticed some 



J.C., vii., April, 1092 



