and the use of which we cannot now account
for. They will be seemingly as meaningless as any lonely cairn, isolated
broken piece of wall, or solitary fragment of a building, of which no
principal part remains, and which puzzles us to account for at the
present time.

Mr. Williamson's property at Edge-hill, was principally held under the
Waste Lands Commission. His leases expired in 1858. It commenced
adjoining Miss Mason's house, near Paddington, and extended to
Grinfield-street. It was bounded on the west by Smithdown-lane, along
which ran a massive stone wall of singular appearance, more like that of
a fortress than a mere enclosure. Within this area were some of the most
extraordinary works, involving as great an outlay of money as may be
found anywhere upon the face of the earth, considering the space of
ground they occupy. In their newly-wrought state, about the years 1835
and '36, or thereabouts, they created intense wonder in the minds of the
very few who were permitted to examine them. During the last few years,
I believe they have been gradually filled up and very much altered, but
they are still there to be laid open some day. Few of us know much of
them, though so few years have elapsed since they were projected and
carried out, since the sounds of the blast, the pick, and the shovel were
last heard in their vicinity. Now what will be said of these minings,
subterranean galleries, vaults and arches, should they suddenly be
discovered a century hence, when their originator as well as their origin
shall have faded away into nothing like the vanishing point of the
painter? Here we behold an astonishing instance of the application of
vast labour without use, immense expense incurred without hope of return,
and, if we except the asserted reason of the late projector that these
works were carried on for the sole purpose of employing men in times of
great need and depression, we have here stupendous works without
perceptible motive, reason, or form. Like the catacombs at Paris,
Williamson's vaults might have been made receptacles for the dried bones
of legions of our forefathers. Again, they might have been converted
into fitting places for the hiding of stolen goods, or where the illicit
distiller might carry on his trade with impunity.

I hardly know in what tense to speak of those excavations, not being
aware in what state they are at present. A strange place it is, or was.
Vaulted passages cut out