ession of whose family the estate still remains.
To Mr. N.G. Clayton we owe the Museum at the Lodge gate, which he built
for the reception of the notable collection it contains of antiquities
gathered from all the various stations in Northumberland. A very fine
altar brought from Vindolana at once strikes the eye, and may be taken
as a type of many others, though not many are so perfect. The gravestone
of a standard-bearer, from the neighbouring station of Procolitia, shows
a full-length carving of the dead warrior. Other inscribed stones are of
great interest, though unfortunately most of them are but fragments;
still these fragments not infrequently contain a few words which enable
students of them to confirm a date or a fact concerning the garrisons,
which must otherwise have been a matter of pure conjecture. For
instance, it might seem very improbable that the same regiments should
have been quartered in certain stations for over two hundred years; yet
one of the inscribed stones proves that such was the case at Cilurnum.
The inscription states that the second _ala_ of the Asturians repaired
the temple during the consulate of certain persons, which is found to be
about the year 221. In the _Notitia_, which was not compiled until the
beginning of the fifth century, the second _ala_ of the Asturians is
given as the garrison of Cilurnum.

Another thing which strikes the imagination is the sight, after the
lapse of so many centuries, of the erasures on various inscribed
stones--erasures of some emperor's or Caesar's name after his death by
the chisel of a soldier in one of his legions on this far-away post of
his empire. It is one thing to read one's Gibbon, and learn of the
murder of Geta, son of Severus, by order of his brother Caracalla, and
another to see the youth's name roughly scratched out on a stone in
Hexham Abbey crypt; and to read of the assassination of Elagabalus does
not move us one whit, but to see his name erased from a stone in
Chesters museum brings the tumultuous happenings in ancient Rome very
closely home to us.

Here are also several Roman milestones, with their lengthy and sonorous
inscriptions, from various points on the Wall; and a miscellaneous and
deeply interesting collection of smaller articles, such as ornaments of
bronze, jet, or gold, fibulae (brooches or clasps), coins of many
reigns, Samian-ware, terra-cotta and glass, parts of harness, etc., etc.

Of carven figures there are several