123 
1893.] C. R. Wilson — Topography of old Fort William. 
east curtain. This wall and the north face of the wall bh L were plaster- 
ed to a depth of about 7 ft. below the floor level almost to the founda- 
tion of the walls. This seems to show that there was another vault 
immediately north of the wall bb^, and that the wall aa± carried the 
flooring of the room above. As the wall a a j is about 24 ft. long, I infei 
that this was the length of the vault and also of the room above it and, 
I think, that at 24 ft. north of lb y there was another cross wall like bb t 
which below the floor level served as the north wall of a vault and above 
the floor level was a cross wall sub-dividing the space between the cur- 
tain and G V D V 
In this way I have been able to prove by excavation the existence 
of four cross walls etcq, bb^, cc 2 , dd^. But this is not enough. It is still 
necessary to consider whether, as Wells’s plan implies, there were any 
other walls besides these four, and in particular whether there were any 
to the south of dd v For the Black Hole was the southernmost of the 
rooms built along this part of the east curtain. Consequently its site 
must be immediately to the north of the last cross wall, and its site is 
known if the position of the southernmost cross wall is known. I have 
accordingly traced out the wall C^D v which contained the chambers 
built against this part of the east curtain, to a point d\, 166 ft. from 
the centre of the east gate, where this containing wall stops. Beyond 
d\ there is only a small thin wall, built, I suppose, to contain a pave- 
ment. There could have been no cross walls beyond d\, and I have 
found no trace of any between d L and d\. It therefore follows that dd l 
is the southernmost cross wall. I have also traced out the east verandah 
wall 0 2 Z) S to j D 3 , 166 ft. from the centre of the east gate, where 0 2 B 3 
meets the wall D 3 E 3 which carried the third or innermost line of arches 
on the south side of the fort. Thus my excavations prove that dd l is 
the southernmost cross wall, and that it occurred at about 20 ft. noith 
of the end of the containing wall CjDj, and also at about the same dis- 
tance north of the junction of the verandah wall C%D S with the third 
line of arches on the south side I> 3 F 3 . 
This also agrees on the whole with Wells’s plan which represents 
the last cross wall as occurring about 16 ft. 
Comparison of or 18 ft. north of the end of the containing 
Wells’s plan with the ^ ^ 0 f the i uno ti 0 n between the east 
results of excavation. wd * ^ „ , J I1 . ,. e , 
verandah wall and the inner line of arches on 
the south side of the fort. Wells’s plan, however, does not exactly agree 
with the results obtained by excavation as to distances, but this is ac- 
counted for by the fact that the length of the curtain wall between the 
east gate and the south-east bastion is too short by about 12 feet. 
Whoever it was, who actually drew the plan, he did not discover his 
