the octagon Roman Well, which
I should be disposed to consider Major Davis's greatest discovery,
though I observe that hostile critics take no notice of this, possibly
because it is beyond the region of dispute. If any one, able to point
what he reads, still believes that the great Roman Bath was ever
practically opened up in the last century I would refer him to Mr.
Moore's able and suggestive paper, entitled 'Organisms from the
recently discovered Roman Baths in Bath,' read to the members of the
Bath Microscopical Society, in May, 1883. Once more I insist that we
must clearly separate what Sutherland knew from what he conjectured.
Indeed, Sutherland himself fairly draws the distinctions. On page 21
he says, 'This ground plot is exhibited in the plate annexed, as far
as the earth is cleared away. The remainder is supposed, and drawn
out in dotted lines.' These dotted lines represent a vast _terra
incognita_ covering, practically, the whole of the ground recently
opened up. That the existence of the great Roman Bath has been
transferred from the region of conjecture to the region of fact we owe
entirely to the enthusiasm and unwearied zeal of Major Davis, and no
fair mind can deny him the credit of being the practical discoverer of
the great Roman Bath. More credit than this he has never claimed; less
than this only the churlish and envious will grudge him."]

All these fragments I have lately proved to be portions of the great
Roman Bath (_Plates VII. and VIII._), and being within instead of
without that building. The Rev. Prebendary Scarth omits altogether to
figure the southern rectangular _exedra_, found at the same time as
the last named discovery. He also omits the discoveries made in 1809
(?) beneath the houses at the north-western end of York Street. In
1790 very valuable discoveries were made in digging the foundation of
the present Pump Room. Many writers have treated of them and expressed
opinions as to the character of the work and the meaning of the
design, and Mr. Scharf, in _Archaeologia_, Vol. XXXVI., has done ample
justice to these most interesting vestiges: They have been described
by Pownall, Lysons, Warner, Collins, Scharf, Tite, and Scarth,
as being portions of a Temple of the usual type, dedicated to Sul
Minerva. Whitaker, in a review of Warner's History of Bath, printed
in the _Anti-Jacobin_, Vol. X., 1801, differs from all these writers,
although believing the remains to be a portion of a temple,