Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/33

 hollow, down whose descent a flight of stone steps seems to have been carried, consisting of a series of large, roughly-shaped, white millstone grit blocks in situ, which measured 27 inches by 13 inches, 16 inches by 11 inches, 12 inches by 9 inches. They were placed in the blue marshy soil, at a depth of 62 inches. There I met with some small fossilised bones, burnt bones, decayed wood and rootlets, and a piece of Roman brick at the bottom. After this we have another gravel ridge, 13 feet wide, which is succeeded by another long stretch of a marshy depression, 46 feet wide, extending to the back of the new police station at Worsley Street.

We have thus a longitudinal section of 198 feet, drawn at right angles, from the northern wall.

Summing up again, to make the matter clearer, and substituting fosse for hollow, we have then—


 * Fosse I. ... 16 feet wide, 4 feet to 5 feet deep.
 * 5 feet, gravel ridge or rampart.
 * 5 feet, rubbish-ditch.
 * 2 feet, gravel ridge.
 * Fosse II. ... 16 feet.
 * 6 feet, gravel ridge.
 * Fosse III. ... 22 feet.
 * 4 feet, gravel ridge.
 * Fosse IV. ... 14 feet, visible part 3 feet to 4 feet deep.
 * (?) 14 feet, probably carried under Bridgewater Street.
 * (?) 14 feet, gravel ridge (?), probably carried under Bridgewater Street.
 * Fosse V. ... 27 feet, flanked with stone steps.
 * 6 feet, gravel ridge.
 * 47 feet, marshy depression.
 * 198 feet.