Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/67

Rh difficult to describe. The upper part of its internal surface is lined with a rather thick pellicle of dry scaly matter, of a very dark green colour, and somewhat resembling some forms of mouldiness. This is observed gradually to scale off as the urn becomes dry. Placed in water, this substance swells and assumes a gelatinous form: seen through the microscope, it presents traces of a distinct vegetable organisation, and I find that it consists of an aggregation of dead confervæ, which only require air and moisture to have their vital properties reproduced. Dr. Pereira has shown that these microscopic vegetations, which are now commonly called mycoderms (mycoderma), are very common on, and in, decomposing organic fluids. I am not aware whether the present species has before been figured, or whether it has previously been found in sepulchral urns.

The urn now described differs much from ordinary sepulchral urns, whether British, Roman, or Saxon, both as regards its shape and the material of which it is formed. There is no urn at all similar in the collection of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, nor yet figured in the recent "Archaeological Index" of Mr. Akerman. The urn most nearly resembling it which I have seen, is in the collection of Mr. James Cook of York, and was found in digging a drain in the neighbourhood of Walmgate Bar, at a distance of less than half a mile from Lamel-hill. This latter urn, however, presents several points of difference; it has a less regular shape, and is constructed of a more fragile material, in which broken pebbles are not visible. The two urns, however, as the woodcuts will show, belong to a common type as regards form. In size, also, they correspond very closely, there not being a difference of more than half an inch in their respective heights. The urn from the neighbourhood of Walmgate Bar had likewise, in all probability, been used for a sepulchral purpose, being found at a depth of some feet below the surface, with its mouth downwards, immersed in a dark boggy kind of earth. Its contents were not carefully examined, but were reported by the workman, by whose pickaxe it was cracked, to consist of the same kind of earth as that in which it was imbedded.

During the excavations, numerous iron nails and rivets of various sizes, and a still greater number of pieces of iron bar bent at a right angle and perforated by nails or pins of iron, were found. These appear to be of rather rude workmanship,