154 Archceologia. 



inscription was read flavio julio Constantino pio caesari diyi con- 

 stantini pii augusti filio. This, of course, referred to the Emperor 

 Constantine II., or, if the first name may have been mis-read, to 

 Constantius II., whose names were Flavius Julius Constantius. The 

 latter was entrusted with the administration of Gaul at the early- 

 age of fifteen, in a.d. 332. We are informed that, in connection with 

 these remains of ancient mines, there are traces of the metal having 

 been smelted on the spot. There were found, among the earth 

 which filled the cave, besides the fragments of pottery already 

 alluded to, large quantities of a coarser kind, portions of iron instru- 

 ments, a quern, and other articles of stone, with a good flint flake ; 

 a,nd also great quantities of charcoal and bones of animals. Amongst 

 the pottery are two or three bits curiously perforated, "as if the 

 cord had been passed through the holes alternately from one side to 

 the other." The cave is surrounded by a great trench, which the 

 excavators are now following up. Mr. Blight adds, in his note, 

 " In a similar cave a few miles distant, a fragment of Samian ware 

 was found two or three years ago, and it is rather curious that 

 fragments of the same ware have been procured from a Scottish 

 Pict's house. These Pict's houses are constructed very much after 

 the manner of the Cornish caves." 



The British Archaeological Association has just published the 

 full details of the discovery of the Roman building on the shore of 

 Gurnard Bay in the Isle of Wight, drawn up by the Rev. Edmund 

 Kell. It consisted of three rooms, or at least of one middle room and 

 the greater part of two others, at the termination of an ancient road 

 (no doubt Roman) called Rue Street, which runs across the island 

 from north to south. These rooms present the appearance of having 

 formed one side of a court of a larger building, and were evidently 

 rooms for ordinary purposes, as they were rather coarsely paved 

 with small tiles. A good number of Roman coins, with fragments 

 of Samian ware, and other pottery, pieces of building materials, 

 and various other objects, including a mutilated bronze figure of 

 Mercury, were found scattered about. Among other things found 

 here were exhibited a number of small discs of lead, stamped with 

 marks, and with letters, the more numerous examples of the latter 

 consisting of the combination C. T. The circumstances under 

 which these were found seems to suggest the belief, held by Mr. 

 Kell, that they are Roman, and there is nothing about them to 

 urge us very forcibly to a different conclusion. They certainly 

 remind us of the Roman leaden seals, of the same character, which 

 have been found at Brough upon Stanmore in Westmoreland, and 

 at Felixstowe in Suffolk (both the sites of Roman stations), and 

 examples of which have been engraved by Mr. Roach Smith, in his 

 Collectanea A?itiqua, vol. iii., p. 197. The latter, however, are much 

 less rudely engraved, and present more elaborate designs, with 

 more numerous combinations of letters, than those found at Gurnard 

 Bay ; they seem to have been connected with some class of commerce 

 carried on in this distant province during the Roman period with 

 which we are at present totally unacquainted. With the Roman 

 -coins at Gurnard Bay were also found a few Greek coins, all of copper. 



