122 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Bowness on the Sol way Frith. Its total length is about siKty-eight 
miles three furlongs, it was, originally, about nineteen feet in height, 
and nine feet in thickness. It consists (i.e. the whole construction) 
of three parts : 1. A stone wall strengthened by a ditch on its north 
side. 2. An earth wall or vallum on the south side of the wall. 
3. Stations, castles, watch-towers, and roads, for the accommodation 
of the soldiers who manned the barrier, and the transmission of 
military stores ; these lie for the most part between the stone wall 
and the rampart. The whole of these works proceed in nearly a 
direct line from one side of the island to the other, in close com- 
panionship. The stone wall and the earthen rampart are generally 
within sixty or seventy yards of each other. The stone wall takes 
a straight course up the highest hills and down the deepest declivi- 
ties, in this respect resembling the great wall of China ; the earthen 
rampart however deflects from the straight line as occasion requires. 
In the records we have handed down to us these two lines of 
fortifications are considered as the works of different periods — the 
earth wall or vallum has been ascribed to Hadrian ; the stone wall 
or murus to Severus. This is the opinion of Horseley. But later 
conclusions are in favour of the whole being the result of one 
engineering scheme, and probably begun and completed by Hadrian. 
The wall never fails to seize the highest points of each opposing 
ridge of hills ; it never bends at a curve, but always at an angle, 
in some cases being a succession of zigzags. Some portion of its 
course is through a region of basaltic formation, in which it has to 
make a way for itself through the hardest rock; it hesitates at 
nothing — the whinstones are disinterred, the basaltic rocks are 
excavated ; it goes right on through all, a fit type of the iron will 
and the iron rule of those who constructed it. Bede is the earliest 
of our own writers who mentions it. He says it was in his time 
eight feet in breadth, twelve in height, in a straight line from east 
to west. Other writers who name it are Leland, Sir Kit Ridley 
(1572), Samson Erdeswick, Camden, Horseley, and Warburton. 
The vallum or earth rampart also has a fosse on its south side, 
from which it has been supposed that this part of the construction 
was for defence against the rising of the southern people, who 
might be induced to attempt to regain their independence, whilst 
the barrier, with its northern fosse, was intended for protection 
from the Caledonians and Picts, who were thirsting for southern 
conquest. 
