Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/41

 at- T II £ HISTORY Book I. with it, was continued dltcQAy to the river, and the ram- part ftiil appears along the defcent to it,. and ftill carries a large appearance and an elevated creft. Beneath this bank and rampart fpread out an hnpta&icable morafe about one hun- dred yards in breadth and three hundred in length, beginning at the margin of the Medlock on the fouth, extending be- twixt the foot of the bank and the channel of a rill to the north-weft of the Brkifli city, and giving it a full fecurity upon that quarter V But diredly upon the.nratgin of the Med- lock the edge of the morafs remained to the prefent period fufficiently practicable and hard, and obliged the Britons to con- tinue the hank to the riven Thefe were the natural and artificial barriers of the Britifh Mancenion on theeaftthe north andrthe weft. And, for greater % fafety on the % - fouth, thewindirig bank of the river was carefully fcarped fey the Brkons. The^iong.ftrokes of their large pickaxes appeared m 1764, for the whole compaf&of the baak, upon the face of the rocks which are below the prefent edge of the water, anddefccnded nearly to the original furface of it, k within a yard and ah half fratothe ftoaty bed, of the river, < The continuance of this fcarpmg along the whole compafs of the margin evinces it plainly to be Britith, as it was evidently performed; at a period vrheft the whole areaf of the field was a fortification. %t was evidently performed when the; whole area of the field yas not iaferely a temporary fortification, ufed occafionally for a .few weeks till a regular ftation could be conftru&ed within it, i^hkh* was probably the cafe in the time of the Romans.; but • When it was- a fixed a ftated fortification, which was certainly the cafe in thethne of the Britons only. And accordingly, deep in the artificial foil with which the face of the bank has been fihce cotfe*ed, were found in 1765 and 1766 a "Roman fibula, a Roman urn which (hall be described, hereafter 7, a Roman coiu, tvhich had .. ..REDVC1 upon one fide and ....•AN A VG COS upon the other, and a Homan lachrymatory q£ bteck -g4afs, - depofited in a little hollow oJpoa. the rock and half-filled with ijears^ the cork-ftopple being nearly confumed by time, and 5 the