ircular--and hypocausts were opened out,
and--perhaps as interesting as anything--the culvert was discovered
for drawing off the waste water, an excellent piece of masonry, and
high enough for a man to stand upright in it. The remains of these
old Baths of the Romans are not mere traces of walls, intelligible
only to the antiquary, but are the actual basins, capable still of
use, and one can ascend by the same steps and tread the same pavement
as did the Roman bather of old.

On the Romans leaving Britain, the baths were for a long time
deserted, and were soon buried under alluvium by the flooding of the
river; but the hot springs never ceased to pour forth their abundant
stream. The waters are impregnated with calcium and sodium sulphates
and sodium and magnesium chlorides, and we must not forget the metal
which called forth Mr. Weller's description: "I thought they'd a very
strong flavour o' warm flat-irons." They are in greater vogue than
ever now that radium has been found to be one of the constituents.

Bath was a place of resort even in Saxon times; for our
forefathers--before the days of goloshes, mackintoshes and
umbrellas--must have been sad sufferers from rheumatic affections.

It is also clear that the brine-springs, or _wyches_, of Droitwich,
in Worcestershire, were also known to the Romans, as well as Spas in
other parts of the country. That there was a Roman station at
Droitwich is evidenced by the remains of a villa, containing
interesting and valuable relics, discovered some years ago during the
construction of the Oxford and Wolverhampton Railway.

CAERLEON, IN MONMOUTHSHIRE.

This is the Isca Silurum of the Romans. It is situated on the right
bank of the Usk, and is the Old Port, in contradistinction to the New
Port, some 3-1/2 miles distant, lower down the river. Caerleon seems
to be a corruption of _Castrum Legionis_. The place was one of the
great fortresses of Roman Britain, and constituted the station of the
Second Augustan Legion in the first century A.D. It ranked as a
Colony, and as the capital of Britannia Secunda during the period of
Roman domination. Its position was favourable for the coercion of the
wild Silures. No civil life or municipality seems to have grown up
outside its boundaries; like Chester, it remained purely military.
There remain fragments of the walls, and outside these limits there
is a grass-grown amphitheatre, 222 ft. by 192 ft., in which the tiers
of seats