72 Archceologia. 



ARCTL3E0L0GIA. 



Another example of the primitive canoe has lately been found in 

 "Whettall Moss, about three miles from Ellesmere, in Shropshire, 

 in the course of some extensive excavations for agricultural drainage 

 on the estate of Earl Brownlow. As the men were employed in 

 cutting a main drain, they came upon this canoe, at about six feet 

 below the surface. A large birch tree was growing over it. The 

 canoe was found in tolerably perfect condition. It is eleven feet 

 long by two feet five inches wide, and one foot four inches deep. 

 A considerable number of similar canoes, usually about the same 

 dimensions, have now been found in different parts of Britain, but 

 never in such immediate connection with relics of known date as 

 to enable us to fix the period or periods to which they belong. 

 Our own opinion is that, for the most part, they are by no means 

 necessarily of so remote a date as has sometimes been ascribed to 

 them. 



A rather interesting sample of a Roman Tesselated Pavement 

 has been found in the churchyard of Caerleon, the site of the Isccu 

 Silurum of the Romans. It was carefully taken up, and removed 

 into the museum of the Caerleon Antiquarian Society, where it will 

 be preserved. It offers a good specimen of the labyrinthine, or 

 maze, pattern, of which other examples might be pointed out. This 

 is not the only instance in Britain of a fine tesselated pavement 

 being found under a churchyard, a position no doubt arising from 

 the circumstance that at the time the church was first built, the 

 builders selected a spot which had been occupied by a previous 

 building of some extent, such as a Roman villa, the ruins of 

 which furnished them with plenty of building materials ready at 

 hand ; and the ground covering the pavements of some of the larger 

 rooms offered a clear space which would serve conveniently for the 

 churchyard. This was the case with the principal apartment of 

 the extensive villa at Woodchester, in Gloucestershire, the pave- 

 ment of which lies under the modern church and churchyard, in 

 consequence of which the mosaic work has been cut through and 

 broken up in all parts by the sinking of graves. 



Some Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, found in excavations in Leicester 

 and the neighbourhood, have recently been laid before the Leicester- 

 shire Architectural and Archaeological Society. The more remark- 

 able of these relics were discovered in the parish of Glen Parva, 

 some four miles from Leicester, in a grave containing a skeleton 

 which is assumed, from the objects found with it, to be that of a 

 Saxon lady. There were two bronze pendants, perhaps part of a 

 sort of chatelaine which is often found in such graves, and appears 

 to have been suspended to the lady's waist ; three bronze fibulae ; 

 part of an article made of bone, supposed to be an amulet ; two flat 

 pieces of bone, with corresponding rivet-holes, and one bone rivet 

 remaining, apparently belonging to the handle of a knife ; a drink- 

 ing vessel of thin glass, which was broken to pieces in taking it out 

 of the earth ; two large finger rings : several beads, of glass and 



