Letters and divers other mixt discourses in natural philosophy many of which were formerly published in the Philosophical transactions of Mr. Oldenburg, and part in the Philosophical collections of Mr. Hooke and else where : all which are now revised, augmented, and to them are added very many other matters of the same nature, not before published : also an intire treatis of the nature and use of colours in oyl. painting / written by M. Lister, F. of the R.S.

A Letter containing an account of Antiquities, &c. Philosophical Collections. Numb. 4.

IN turning over my Papers, I found Notes of some∣thing I formerly writ to Mr. Oldenburg, and which I believed was lost; it being sent much about the time of his death▪ They relate to certain Antiquities, which have, for ought I know, escaped the more curious Anti∣quaries of this and the last Age, when that Study was much more in credit: But we shall treat of them here only in the relation they may have to the advancement of Natural Philosophy and Arts.

1. Roman Vrnes are found in very many places throughout the whole Kingdom; but the different work∣manship of these Vessels, their composition, and places where they made them, have been little that I know of taken notice of by any. I have observed what fol∣lows of these matters:

Here then are found at York, in the road or Roman-street without Mickle-gate; and likewise by the River

side, where the Brick Kilns now are, Urnes of three different tempers, viz.

1. Of a bluish grey colour, having a great quan∣tity of course Sand wrought in with the Clay.

2. Others of the same colour, having either a very fine sand mixt with it full of Mica, or Catsilver, or made of clay naturally sandy.

3. Red Urnes of fine Clay, with little or no Sand in it. These Pots are quite throughout of a Red colour like fine Bole. Also many of these red pots are elegantly adorned with Figures in Basso Relievo, and usually the Workmans name, which I think others have mistaken [Burtons C. Ant. It. p. 183, 230.] for the persons name buried therein, upon the bottom or cover; as Januarius and such like; but that very name I have seen upon several red Pots, found both here and at Aldbo∣rough. After all, these are glazed inside and outside with a kind of Varnish of a bright Coral colour.

The composition of the first sort of Pots, did first give me occasion to discover the places where they were made: The one about the midway betwixt Wilber∣sosse and Barnbie on the More, Six miles from York in the Sand-Hills, or rising grounds, where now the Warren is. The other Roman Pottery on the Sand-Hills at San∣ton, not far off Brigg in Lincolnshire, In the first place I have found widely up and down broken pieces of Urnes, Slagg, and Cinders. At the latter place there are yet remaining, (though it is a moveable Sand, and burried every way by the Wind, and has by that means covered the places all over) some of the very Furnaces; whose ruins I take to be some of those metae or sandy Hillocks. Besides here are many pieces of Pots and Urnes of different shapes, and much Slagg and Cinders; This Potterie having taken up much Ground, as to one that shall diligently view the place, it will appear. 'Tis remarkable, that both the above mentioned Potteries

are within less than a mile of the Roman Road, or Mili∣tary-high-way. Nothing is remembred in either of those places, of any Pottery that was known in those parts, nor indeed could I learn where any good clay for that purpose was to be had near those Sands: which yet our modern Potteries chiefly seek after, which has made them to be forgotten and disused; The materials of our modern Pots being much altered, and consequent∣ly the places.

The Roman Urns above discribed differ in these particulars, from what Pots are now usually made a∣mongst us. (1) That they are without all manner of glazing with lead, which perhaps is a Modern inven∣tion. (2.) That a far greater quantity of Sand is used than clay, which thing alone made it worth their while, to bring their clay to the Sand-Hills. (3) That they were baked either with more leisure after long and through drying, or immoderate contact of the Flames: which I am induced to believe, because there seem to be fragments of such things to be found. 'Tis certain the natural colour of the Clay is not altered by burn∣ing: So that both the degrees of heat and manner of burning might be different. And one of these Potsherds as I have tried, baked over again in our Ovens, will be∣come red. As to the two last kind of Urns, its likely the first of them with their particles of Mica in it, were made of a sandy blue Clay, of which nature there is good plenty among the Western Mountains of York∣shire, and particularly at Carleton in Oatley Parish not far off Ickley a Roman station. The red Urns seem to have been their Master-piece, wherein they shewed the greatest Art, and seemed to glory most, and to eternize their names on them. I have seen great varieties of Embossed work on them. And lastly for the elegant manner of glazing, it is far ••eater indeed, and more dur∣able than our modern way of Leading, which is apt

to crack and crase, both with wet and heat: and at the fire is certainly unwholsome, by reason of the fumes Lead usually emits, being a quick vaporable Metal. This an∣cient glazing seems to have been done by the Brush, or dipping; for both inside as well as outside of the Urn are glazed, and that before the Baking. And some∣thing of the Materials of it seems to be remembred by Pliny Lib. 36. C. 19. Fictilia ex bitumine Inscripta non delentur. The Painting of Pots with bitumen is indelible. And again, Tingi solidas exbi••umine Statuas. lib. 35. c. 15. The bitumen he sayes sinks into the very Stones and Pots, which is something more tha•• glazing.

The great plenty of these Urns found in many parts of England seems to argue them also of English Manu∣facture, but where I cannot guess, unless wrought at the Bole Mines (of which Clay alone they seem to be made) in Cleveland; for that that barren tract of Land, called Blackmoor, was well known to the Romans, the Jet Rings taken up withthese Vrns doth sufficiently testifie. Now Bole and Jet are no where that I know of to be found with us in England but in that Tract; beings Fossils peculiar to those Mountains. Of these Jet Rings some are plain, and others wrought, but all of them of an extraordinary bigness, being at least three Inches diameter, and yet the inward bore is not a∣bove an inch and an half, which makes them too little for the Wrists of any Man, as they are much too big for the Fingers, so that probably they were never worn either as Armilla or Anuli. One of each sort I have by me, which I carefully redeemed of the Work∣man, besides many others which were broken, found about a sort of Urns in York fields. And since we are upon the subject of Plasticks, or the Roman Clay-work, we cannot but take notice of the opinion of Cambden;

Who will have the Obelisks at Burrow-Briggs in this County Artificial, when in truth they are nothing less, being made of a course Rag, or Milstone-grit; but without doubt, the bigness of the Stone surprized him, either not thinking them portable, or perhaps not any English rock, fit to yield natural Stones of that magni∣tude: But Roman Monuments I suppose none doubt them, because pitched here by a very remarkable and known Roman station, Isurium.

And then consider what trifles these are, compared with the least obelisks at Rome. And as to the Rocks whence they might be hewn, there are many of that Stone near the River Nid, and upou the Forest of Rnasborough; and a little above Ickly, (another Roman station) within sixteen miles of Burrow-Briggs there is one solid Bed of this very Stone, whose perpendicular depth only will yield obelisks, at least thirty foot long. And yet at Rudstone near Burlington in the York-shire Woolds, full forty miles wide of these Quarries, is an obelisk of the very same Stone, shape and magnitude of these before mentioned. But we cannot let this pass without noting, That almost all the Monuments of the Romans with us were of this sort of Stone; As the ancinet walls of this City, as appears by what re∣mains of the ancient Gates, and the great quantities of it that is wrought up in most of the Churches, and is still daily dug out of Foundations: But a most undeni∣able instance is, a vast Roman head, perhaps of some of the Emperors, upon a neck or square to pedestal of one solid Stone, with the point of the square to the eye, of as course a grit as that of the Obelisks above mentioned. This Stone is now in Mr. Hilliards Garden, and was dugg out of the Foundations of some Houses there∣abouts. The only remaining Inscription that I could find at Burrow-briggs, yet imperfect as well as odde, is

upon this sort of Stone in the Street Wall of Sir Wil∣lam Tankards House.

[illustration]

Also two Roman Alters I have seen of this Stone; one the original of that at Ickley mentioned in Camb∣den; Another in the possession of that ingenious An∣tiquary Mr. Thirsby late of Leeds.

And this I think sufficient to disprove that mistake of Cambden, That the Stones at Burrow-briggs are arti∣ficial. There is but one only instance that I ever yet met with of the Romans ever having used in these parts of England any other sort of Stone; yet is it not the common lime stone, but a certain Stone had from the Quarries about Malton, because of the Lapides Ju∣daici, by me formerly described to be seen in the tex∣ture of it. It is small but elegant Alter with Figures in Basso Relievo, of Sacrificing instruments, &c. It has suffered an unlucky accident by the stupid igno∣rance of the Masons, who were ordered by the late

Lord Fairfax to place it upon a Pedestal in the Court of his House at YORK. Yet the Inscription which they had miserably defaced, was by chance preserved.

I. O. M.
DIS. DEABUS QUE
HOSPITALIBUS. PE
NATIBUS QUE OB CON¦SERVATAM
SALVTEM
SUAM. SUORVM QUE
P. AEL. MARCIAN
US. PRAEF. COH
ARAM. SAC. F. NC. D.