some of the stoneware mortaria have no pebbles at all, but a very rough granular interior surface instead; in one case the inside is like a rough crater, and the layer of rough knobs of coarse sand grains acts like a sharp rasp.
They are in shape like modern milk-pans, flat and circular, with overlapping rims, and having lips or spouts of various form and width, some very graceful. On the two sides of the lips often occurs the maker's name. Of such I have six. One of my specimens, measuring only 9 inches across, is extremely shallow, with a downward sloping rim of 1 inch deep, the depth of the basin is scarcely more than ½ inch, and it can only have been used for some particular purpose. When pouring out the pulpy or mashed substance the mortaria were held with the two hands and fingers under the inverted rim, as is easily seen from its construction. I have a mortarium complete, minus its bottom.
Varia.—Red hair (probably human), from the black pit; boar's grease, from the Roman soil in Trafford Street, analysed by Mr. Robert Pettigrew; dressed goat-skin, a large piece 8 inches long and 4 inches wide, dressed and dyed black, found in the black pit.
Querns[1] of millstone grit, 18 inches in diameter, 3 inches in height, and scooped out through and in the centre. Another one, 14 inches in diameter and 2 inches thick, probably from the Blackstone Edge or Castleshaw quarries.
One of basaltic lava, 11 inches in diameter and 2 inches high—also occurring at Wilderspool, Silchester, and many other places—from the millstone-lava quarries near Nieder-
- ↑ Querns, in situ, imbedded in a setting of clay and fringed round with small boulder stones, have been found at Melandra (Hamnett). See also "Roman and Gallo-Roman Flour Mills," Scientific American Supplement, October 6th, 1900, p. 20,714, and illustration, figure 5.
