1895.] Alexander E. Caddy— A solid Inscriptions in India. 155 
portion of the column in a plaster jacket, and of stripping it the same 
evening. 
10. As they now lie in the Museum, these mould plaques are 
curved slabs of plaster of Paris measuring, most of them, 23" x 15", 
and a little over an inch in depth, enclosing a piece of wire netting 
bound in an iron frame. Each has been barked from the column after 
being blocked on to it by pouring the liquid plaster into a cell, the 
inner side being the inscribed stone surface; the outer a stout sheet 
of tin, the net being suspended in the hollow. A rubber tube led the 
plaster quietly to the bottom of the well, thus saving much laborious 
manipulation. These I brought into Bettiah and left there till my 
return from the northern Lauriya. 
Among other objects of interest shown me by Mr. Gibbon at Bettiah 
were a few stones from the coping of a well near Tribeni , which bore 
the honeysuckle ornament of the Erectheum, common to several Asoka 
columns, and of 'which he permitted me to take casts, which I have with 
me now at the Museum. He also arranged for my dak to Lauriya 
Navandgarh. 
11. At Lauriya Navandgarh the work was soon in train. Araraj 
experiences had taught us some lessons, and we saw the plaster gradually 
covering the inscribed portion of the column in regular slabs. 
This pillar is somewhat smaller than that at Araraj; the latter is 
massive, and its capital, if it had any, was long since lost. This is 
the more graceful of the two, and is surmounted by a lion capital. The 
shaft and inscription are in the same condition as that at Araraj , and 
in the same material. The couchant lion faces the rising sun. He sits on 
a circular abacus, the rim of which is girdled by a string of hans (the 
sacred geese of the Buddhists). This rests on a cable string-course 
which crowns a Persepolitan lotus-capital or terminal, whose grace¬ 
fully drooping petals end just outside an egg and dart ovolo, the en¬ 
tablature finishing below in a second cable string-course. The design and 
workmanship disclose both knowledge and power. The jaw of the lion 
has been destroyed. 
12. I had a rajmistri go up to the entablature and mould off a 
portion of the goose frieze and of the terminal, so that when .the column 
is set up in the Museum it will not end quite abruptly. 
' 13. At the Navandgarh Lauriya, while examining one of the ancient 
barrows which characterise this village, I found two belts of iron in the 
same prependicular axis, from which I surmised they must have bound 
the earth end of some tall pole. It is probable the report noted by 
General Cunningham regarding an iron coffin may «have had its origin 
in some such finch From here I returned to Bettiah by elephant, and 
