Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/517

] and of Somerset, the jet of Yorkshire, and the coal of Northumberland.

The influence of Rome penetrated into every part of the country south of the Highlands, and the Roman villas, with their tesselated pavements, baths, columns, and statues, originally designed for the sunny skies of Italy, rose under the inclement skies of Northumberland, Lancashire, and Wales, and were very numerous in the southern districts. Latin was the official language, occupying the same relation to the British tongue that French held till recently in Russia, and Britain was a province in the same sense as Gaul and Spain, and became Christian like the rest of the empire by the edict of the Emperor Constantine.

The Romans have also left their mark in the animals and plants which they naturalised in Britain. The fallow deer of southern Europe was introduced into the forests, the pheasant into the woodlands, and the hornless sheep, the goose, and the domestic fowl, were added to the animals used for the table. The last two were, however, known before the days of Cæsar; but from some superstitious feeling were not eaten. The elm, now so common, may be inferred not to have existed in Britain before the Historic period, from its not occurring in the forests buried under peat or submerged beneath the sea, and was probably naturalised by the Romans.