72 Archceologia. 



the town of Vagniacce, marked in the Roman itineraries as lying on 

 the great Watling Street road somewhere in this neighbourhood. 

 Frequent discoveries of Roman remains have been made at this place 

 during many years, which tend to show that it must have been a town 

 of considerable importance. Various obj ects lately found there were 

 exhibited at a recent meeting of the Archaeological Institute, in- 

 cluding a richly jewelled necklace of gold, with rings and bracelets 

 of the same material, found in a stone coffin with the skeletons of 

 two young children ; and two previously unknown British coins in 

 bronze, one of which bears the figure of an elephant. We may re- 

 mark that the discovery of British coins under such circumstances 

 is not necessarily a proof of the early date of the settlement, as 

 British and Gaulish coins were certainly in circulation during a 

 considerable part of theRoman period. 



An interesting discovert has been made at Northwich, in 

 Cheshire, where the Romans had considerable salt-works. While 

 excavating for graving docks on the banks of the river Weaver, the 

 workmen came upon four leaden pans, which had been used by the 

 Romans for extracting brine from the natural salt. They were 

 found at a depth of about ten feet. The workmen broke up three 

 of these vessels and sold them for old metal, but the fourth was 

 preserved, and is now in the Warrington Museum. It is a square 

 vessel, about three feet and a half loug by two feet and a quarter 

 wide, and four and a half inches deep. At each end there is a hole 

 in the side, believed to have been intended for the purpose of fixing 

 it to a wooden framework, and the inner surface of the bottom is 

 covered with scratches, supposed to have been made by the teeth of 

 a rake, used for removing the dross deposited in the process of 

 evaporation. On one side there are marks of letters, which have 

 not been satisfactorily deciphered. On a fragment of one of the 

 other pans an inscription has been traced which seems to be cor- 

 rectly read as devae, which was the Roman name for Chester, and 

 has been conjectured to mean that the Roman salt-works at North- 

 wich belonged to that city. But this does not appear to us to be a 

 very probable interpretation. T. W. 



