Section of the subsided floor of a room, paved with tesseræ, at Silchester. Scale. sunk considerably, especi ally towards the middle; and this is shown in the three following sections. The measurements were made by stretching a string tightly and horizontally over the floor. The section, Fig. 13, was taken from north to south across a room, 18 feet 4 inches in length, with a nearly perfect pavement, next to the "Red Wooden Hut." In the northern half, the sub. sidence amounted to 52 inches beneath the level of the floor as it now stands close to the walls; and it was greater in the northern than in the southern half; but, according to Mr. Joyce, the entire pavement has obviously subsided. In several places, the tessera appeared as if drawn a little away from the walls; whilst in other places they were still in close contact with them. In Fig. 14, we see a section across the paved floor of the southern corridor or ambulatory of a quadrangle, in an excavation made near "The Spring." The floor is 7 feet 9 inches wide, and the broken-down walls now project only of an inch above its level. The field, which was in pasture, here sloped from north to south, at an angle of 3° 40'. The nature of the ground on each side of the corridor is shown in the section. It consisted of earth full of stones and other débris, capped with dark vegetable mould which was thicker on the lower or southern than on the northern side. The pavement was nearly level along lines parallel to the side-walls, but had sunk in the middle as much as 73 inches. A small room at no great distance from that represented in Fig. 13, had been enlarged by the Roman occupier on the southern side, by an addition of 5 feet 4 inches in breadth. For this purpose the southern wall of the house had been pulled down, but the foundations of the old wall had been left buried at a little depth A north and south section through the subsided floor of a corridor, paved with tesseræ. Outside the broken-down bounding walls, the excavated ground on each side is shown for a short space. Nature of the ground beneath the tessera unknown. Silchester. Scale beneath the pavement of the enlarged room. Mr. Joyce believes that this buried wall must have been built before the reign of Claudius II., who died 270, A.D. We see in the accom panying section, Fig. 15, that the tesselated pavement has subsided to a less degree over the buried wall than elsewhere; so that a slight convexity or protuberance here stretched in a straight line across the room. This led to a hole being dug, and the buried wall was thus discovered. We see in these three sections, and in several others not given, that the old pavements have sunk or sagged considerably. Mr. Joyce formerly attributed this sinking solely to the slow settling of the ground. That there has been some settling is highly probable, and it may be seen in section 15 that the pavement for a width of 5 feet over the southern enlargement of the room, which must have been built on fresh ground, has sunk a little more than on the old northern side. But this sinking may possibly have had no connection with the enlargement of the room, for in Fig. 13, one half of the pavement has subsided more |