312 Archceologia. 



and that the stem grew up gradually to the surface of the water, 

 carrying with it the leaves thus developed from the bottom, which 

 is not the usual process of the natural growth of plants. 



Within a few months past, antiquaries in Scotland have been 

 occupied in opening several early barrows and cairns. In the 

 centre of one of the latter, known by the name of Cairngreg, at 

 Linlathen, in Forfarshire, a cist formed of large slabs of stone was 

 found, from which, when this cairn was opened on a former occasion, 

 a small urn and bronze dagger were taken. Between the two great 

 slabs which covered the cist, one placed over the other, lay, what ap- 

 peared to be, a fragment of a larger pillar, on which was rudely sculp- 

 tured the figure of an elephant. This figure is said to be common on 

 stone monuments on the north-east coast of Scotland, which belong 

 to the Christian period ; but, it was concluded, from the discovery 

 of the urn and the bronze dagger, that this particular monument 

 belongs to a much earlier date, and that, at the time when the cist 

 was raised, the sculptured upright stone, which had been broken, was 

 used in its construction, and. that therefore the sculptures must be 

 assigned to a pre-Christian system. This inference is, however, 

 perhaps rather hasty, for if the sculptured elephant be characteristic 

 in that district of very early Christian monuments, we should be 

 inclined to look upon the sculptured fragment in the cairn to have 

 quite as good a claim to be considered as evidence of the age of the 

 latter as the urn and dagger. 



At the last meeting of the Archaeological Association, Mr. J. T. 

 Irvine exhibited fragments of Roman tiles, taken from the old 

 church at Berkeley, in Gloucestershire, where they had been used 

 as building materials. They afforded sufficient evidence that there 

 had existed Roman buildings of some kind at this place, and, more- 

 over, that it had been a military post, for these tiles were stamped 

 with the inscription — 



D E c L. v I, 

 which was interpreted as standing for decwia colwrs legionis sextce. 

 If this interpretation be correct — for there appears to be some 

 obscurity about it — it would point to a very remarkable circum- 

 stance. The sixth legion was stationed at Tork, as a check upon 

 Scotland and the north, and is never, as far as we are aware, men- 

 tioned in any monuments in the middle or south of England ; and 

 why a body of troops should be brought from the legion at Tork 

 into the remote district of Gloucestershire, where there was one 

 legion close at hand (the second, at Caerleon) and another between 

 Berkeley and York, and much nearer and more accessible (the 

 twentieth, at Chester), is quite inexplicable. Is it possible that these 

 bricks may be memorials of the late period, when, according to the 

 Notitia, the twentieth legion was no longer in the island, and the 

 second had been removed from Caerleon to Richborough in Kent, 

 so that a portion of the only other legion then in Britain, the sixth, 

 might have been employed in repressing disturbances, or resisting 

 invasion in the south-west ? T. W. 



