recesses, and notched into the original pilasters.

None of the piers, or pilasters, at present exist to a height exceeding 6ft. to 7ft. The base is a rude form of the Attic base; and we have found several fragments of the capital, or impost, of the smaller pilasters, from, which the arches sprang, but I have not been so fortunate as to recognise any of the larger capitals, and but few fragments of the cornices, and but one piece that I can identify as the frieze 1ft. 6in. deep by 2ft. 4in. long, on which are 5 incised letters 6¼in. long S SIL. The schola was then arched in north and south, and the bath spanned by an arch. The vaulting that spanned the side arcades, and the centre (where the abutment was not sufficient for arches formed in the ordinary way of tiles or stone), were built of brick boxes, open at the sides, and wedge-shaped, 1ft. long, 4¾in. thick, and 7¾in. wide at the wider end, set in the usual mortar, a greater or less number of rings of these boxes being used according to the span. These arches were made out by an extra quantity of concrete on the under side for decoration, and on the upper in the case of the great arch, so as to form a roof, the well-known roll and flat Italian tiles being embedded in the mortar. Many and large fragments of this roof were found lying on the deposit that had partially filled the ruins previous to the fall of the roof, and are still carefully preserved. A large fragment, 18ft. long by about 3ft. wide, and 1ft. 9in. thick, that has slipped down, as it were, from the western end, in the position in which it was discovered, was formed of solid tiles, with an arch of tiles 1ft. 8in. long,²¹ the roof having sufficient abutment on this side for a solid construction.²² This arch gives the form of the window that lighted the bath on the western end.

The vaulting of the side aisles, or rather that over the schola, was arched from pier to pier longitudinally and transversely, the quadrangular spaces being in all probability simply groined; but a fragment of box tiles found almost leads one to think that these spaces were vaulted by a domical vault, springing either from pendentives in the angles of the vaults, more common in later work, or from a slight cornice on a level with the apex of the arches. The vault, if there was one, over the semi-circular exedrae must have been hemispherical. From the number of roofing tiles of local stone, shaped into hexagons, found, I think these arcades were roofed in with them, placed overlapping each other, giving a very good effect. Similar tiles were dug up at Wroxeter, and I have found slates of the same shape in the Roman villa I have been excavating for Mr. Chas. I. Elton, F.S.A., M.P., at Whitestaunton Manor. The form of these slates deserves copying; a roof covered by them is far lighter than that of rectangular slabs and more picturesque. The walls on the sides towards the hall, and externally, so far as I have been able to ascertain, are covered with the usual red plaster, shewing that they were internal walls; but from a piece of dentilled, or rather blocked, cornice, which fits the curve of one of the exedrae, I believe the walls were carried up on the north and south above the roofs of the adjoining rooms and corridors of the baths, so that they formed a feature in the elevation and afforded a broken skyline to the composition. The vault over the centre rose considerably above these walls, a portion of the centre of which may have been partially open for the emission of steam and the admission of light. Some square blocks of lead, that were the yotting of bars of metal, rather favour this idea, and suggest that these metal bars were a portion of the machinery by which a brazen shield (clipeus) was suspended, or secured, so that by raising or lowering it the temperature of the hall might be regulated as described by Vitruvius. In the excavations we found an ante-fixa that must have fallen from some portion of the roof. It appears to be intended for a lion, but it is much broken.

I have prepared a sketch section of the bath (which I hope to communicate on a future occasion), transversely and a part longitudinally, in order that a description may the more readily be understood, adopting, in my restoration, the established rules of proportion of Classical architecture, which may, more or less, have been strictly adhered to when the baths were built; indeed, in the best specimens of Roman work a licence was given to the architect as to detail and proportion, that was refused him on the Classical revival. The pilasters of these baths spring, as I have said before, from an Attic base, of somewhat coarse proportions, 14in. high.²³ The attached pilasters that supported the arcade that was carried longitudinally along the bath are without a base; they must have been, within a few inches, more or less, not lower than 10ft. in height, including the impost moulding, of which there are fragments. The arches springing from them would be about 14ft. wide. I have not been able to find any fragments of the archivolt. The pilasters that supported the arches which crossed the schola have bases similar to the larger pilasters. I can hardly speak positively of their elevation or that of the arches, but I am inclined to think the height of the impost moulding was raised, so that the arch, although a smaller span, was the same in height as the longitudinal arches.

The great pilasters, fronting the bath, stand on plain pedestals, breaking forward into the water, on which rested the Attic base, the shaft with Doric (?) capital rising 18ft. above. A complete cornice, the architrave (which we have) and frieze, gave an additional height of nearly 5ft. This cornice ran over the arcade horizontally, but breaking forward the projection of the pilasters about 2ft. 7in. Over this cornice, I conclude, were semi-circular openings, of the same span as the arch beneath, with an architrave of 5 in. to 6 in. A circular vault crossed the bath from pilaster to pilaster, groined with the semi-circular arches just mentioned. Light may have been admitted divisionally in the centre of this great vault, as I previously mentioned, as well, as by the semi-circular arches in the "clear storey." The extreme height from the floor of the schola to the under side of the vaulting may have been as much as 23ft., whilst the height of the central vault above the floor of the bath could not, I estimate, have been less than 48ft. 2in., exceeding by 5ft. the height of the famous Ball Rooms of the Bath Assembly Rooms, and by 14ft. that of the Grand Pump Room.

Many architectural fragments have been found during the excavations of the Great Bath, several portions of columns 2ft. 6in. diameter at base, and several sections of Corinthian foliage with the volute of a capital, of unusually artistic and powerful work; some smaller columns, a fluted shaft, and a Composite capital of debased character; but the four most remarkable fragments are pieces carved on both sides out of blocks about 1ft. 9in. thick, by 1ft. 6in. high. They are each from 2ft. 6in. to 2ft. 9in. long, and are curved, the chord being about 1-9/16in., in a