474 



Archceologia. 



legion, which is quite inadmissible. Mr. Roach Smith, in his 

 very valuable and already very rare volume, Roman London, page 

 116, has suggested that this inscription should be read, CoJwrs 

 quarto, Breucorum. The Breuci were a people of Pannonia, and we 

 know that there were Pannonian auxiliaries in Britain ; and then 

 there were no doubt many people within the extent of the Roman 

 Empire who sent bodies of auxiliary troops to Britain, of which we 

 have at present no memorial. Since this last date there have been 

 many discoveries of Roman antiquities over the district we are 

 describing. 



If any one of these discoveries represent the Roman Campo- 

 dunum, it must of course be the one which lies upon the line of the 

 Roman road, and on this point our information at present seems to 

 be defective. The site on which the present excavations are being 

 carried on is Slack, and the position, is one which might have 

 been that of a Roman station, or of a Roman villa of impor- 

 tance. The present discoveries have resulted from the action 

 of a local society, entitled the Huddersfield Archaeological Asso- 

 ciation, which, under the direction of the Rev. George Lloyd, 

 the incumbent of Thurstonland, has employed a number of men to 

 excavate on the spot. These researches have brought to light a 

 building sixty-eight feet in length, by sixty-four in breadth, the 

 outer walls of which are of the usual Roman thickness of about 

 three feet, a measure which was preserved by the mediaeval builders 

 in the walls of their houses within towns. Several internal walls 

 were traced, inclosing a paved court. In the space between the 

 inner paved court and the front wall of the building — we are quoting 

 the printed description — a gold ring was found, described as " very 

 much worn." In what appears to have been the central inner 

 chamber, a silver coin of the Emperor Vespasian was turned up, 

 and next day a coin of JSTerva, both stated to be in a good state of 

 preservation. Heaps of Roman pottery and bricks and tiles were 

 collected, and among the latter some with the already well-known 

 inscription, COH'IIIPBRE, or the fourth cohort of the Breuci, 

 which seems to show that there was here, or in the neighbourhood, 

 a military garrison, or, at least, a villa dependent upon one, and 

 perhaps inhabited by its chief officer. Hypocausts were also found, 

 and in them, among other relics, a fibula, a stone axe, and human 

 bones. Here we have, of course, a stone implement belonging to 

 the Roman period. In a corner of one of the hypocausts was found 

 a large mass of metal, enveloped in wood, which at first was supposed 

 to be silver, but, on examination, it proved to be the rich ore of lead 

 known by the name of galena. It is stated that this mass weighs 

 about 230 pounds. It would show some relationship to lead-mines or 

 lead-works. By the side of it were found the remains of a human 

 skeleton, and not far from it were those of a child. Whether these 

 remains mark tho site of the Roman Cambodunum, or merely those 

 of a villa in its neighbourhood, they show that it was a military 

 station of some importance, and that there Avere connected with it 

 mining operations. 



It is rather to be lamented that at a time when true and solid 



