1 ft. 8 in., and at their backs 1 foot. The depth of the main flue, from the tops of the piers, was 2 ft. 8 in., sỏ that it was a foot lower than the smaller flues at their junction with it. Its bottom was peddled with clay and bricks worked up as the walls. The width of the partition walls, or piers of the side flues, was 11 in.; and the thickness of the outer rude walls of the entire fabric rather more than 3 feet, on the southern and western sides, but on the northern and eastern sides they are of much less solidity.

The following statement will show the dimensions of the inner, or kiln, part of the building :

Total length, from pier end to pier end, inclusive

Length of central flue, which projects at the furnace
Length of side flues.

Depth of central flue, below the side.

Total length of the construction, including 3 ft. outer

walls

Total width, rough measurement

ft. in. 14 11

15

0

0

18

0

18 0

Although this was one of the rudest buildings I have examined, it must have been well adapted for the purposes intended; closed in as the kiln was on every side by clay, tightly rammed down, the heat from the furnace must have been very great. This was also shown by the tiles, composing the piers and partition walls of the side flues, being completely blackened and cracked by the intensity of the fire, as ascertained on removing the building from the soil, for the benefit of the tenant, after the examination, and the annexed plan and drawing had been completed.

The number of relics discovered in this examination by no means answered to the expectations raised by the quantity of fragments originally found scattered upon the surface; for, on breaking ground, scarcely as many were obtained, and nothing approaching a perfect vase was met with. The appearance of the fragments denoted them to be parts of well baked and long finished vessels, probably

broken in use by the occupiers of the spot. The clay, used in plastering up the kiln, was taken from the soil of the locality; and, judging from the appearance of the ground, a great quantity had at some time been dug out, probably for the manufacture there carried on.

If this manufacture was of pottery, it is at least singular that no unfinished productions of that nature should have been exhumed; the only relic obtained, which might appear to have served in fictile manufacture, was the tine of a deer's horn. This had been shaped into an implement, slightly curved, 4 inches in length, forked at both ends, and it seemed not ill suited to produce the marks upon the scored tiles, so numerous in all Roman buildings, occurring also in abundance in the Villas lately opened in the adjoining parishes of Ashdon and Bartlow, as well as that in Sunken Church Field, Hadstock, in 1850, only five miles distant from this spot. This tine, together with three or four third brass coins of the Constantine family, an iron knife, and other fragments of iron, were all the relics obtained in the excavation now described.

The ground was carefully trenched all round in search of further foundations, but without success.

R. C. NEVILLE.

MONS MEG,

THE ANCIENT BOMBARD, PRESERVED AT EDINBURGH CASTLE.

CANNON, constructed of iron staves bound together with hoops of the same material, were in use for so long a period that it becomes very difficult, in the absence of written testimony or well-authenticated tradition, to assign a date to any particular examples that may have come down to us. Of the great gun of Ghent, which, except in its dimensions, is almost identical with Mons Meg, Captain Favé has recorded his belief that it is in all probability the very "bombarde merveilleusement grande" mentioned by Froissard as employed by the citizens of Ghent against their neighbours of Oudenarde.2 And that cannon of this fashion were still in use in the days of Henry VIII., is a fact familiar to us all from the well-known operations upon the wreck of the Mary Rose.3

Famous guns, like famous nations, begin their history in the faltering accents of tradition. The early days of Mons Meg are chronicled in a Galloway legend; which, however, had so much weight with Sir Walter Scott that he wrote to Mr. Train, a distinguished Scottish antiquary, who had communicated to him the local story with such corroborative facts as he could collect: "You have traced her propinquity so clearly as henceforth to set all conjecture aside."

The legend in question has been preserved in Wilson's "Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time."4

"The Earl of Douglas having seized Sir Patrick M'Lellan, Tutor of Bomby, the Sheriff of Galloway and chief of a

A representation of this bombard may be found in the Vade Mecum du Peintre, par Felix De Vigne, Gand, 1844, plate C. 2 Du reste, il existe encore aujourd'hui à Gand une énorme bombarde qui, selon toute probabilité, est celle dont a parlé Froissard."-Du feu Grégeois, &c., p. 174.

3 Of the wrought-iron bar-and-hoop guns recovered from this vessel, sunk at Spithead in 1545, several very perfect specimens remain. One is preserved in

VOL. X.

the grounds of the Royal Military Repository at Woolwich; another is in the Tower; and a third is figured and described by Sir Charles Lemon in the Reports of the Royal Institution of Cornwall for 1844. All these retain their wooden carriages, with the blocks by which the chambers were wedged close to the chase.

4 Vol. i, page 130.

E