found near Fort Beaufort, 339 miles from Cape Town, South Africa. It was, however, generally considered to be a fossil.

Dr. Woodhouse exhibited an old bronze chafing-dish from Belgium, and a complete set of " Maundy money" from the time of Charles II to the present issue.

Mr. J. R. Allen exhibited,-1. Photograph of coped stone, 2 feet 9 inches by 1 foot 4 inches, with flat, rectangular space in centre, having a cross at each end, and four sloping sides; the whole covered with elaborate, interlaced patterns. Found at Bexhill Church, Sussex, by the Rev. Mr. Clarke, and now built into the walls of the tower. Photograph kindly lent by the Rev. J. H. Simpson of St. Mark's, Bexhill.

2. Stone coffin-lid, 5 feet 3 inches long by 1 foot 9 inches broad, tapering to 1 foot 3 inches, and 4 inches thick at the sides, and 5 inches in the middle, bearing two crosses and panels of plaitwork on each side. Exhibited by kind permission of the Rev. A. B. Hemsworth of Rocklands (All Saints), Norfolk, where the stone was found.

3. Two cross-heads with interlaced patterns, now in the Architectural Museum, Tufton Street, Westminster. Locality unknown.

4. Quern with rude interlaced work, found in London, and now in the Guildhall Museum.

Rev. S. M. Mayhew exhibited antiquities from London excavations : 1. A Norman chessman formed from the tibia of the ox, darkened by peat-water, representing a tower, with head of a knight, who wears a salade. This most rare and interesting London relic is of undoubted Norman work, and possibly imported rather than home-made, as the game originally seems to have reached us from Frankish shores, though known in England a century anterior to the Norman invasion. The piece exhibited is really a castle, first denominated "roc", then "rook" or fortress, or rather keeper of the fortress. Accordingly we here behold the keeper on his watch. In the fourteenth century the piece appears with the watcher's head more prominent, and wearing a peaked helmet, while the cylindrical castle is somewhat incurved. Some of the Cottonian MSS. contain early chess illustrations and chess lore. We quote the names of the pieces as then written: "Rey", "Reyne or Ferce", "Roc", "Alfin or Fol", "Archer or Bishop", the "Knight", the "Pawn". Ancient pieces, whether chess or draughtsmen, are of extreme rarity.

2. In the collection of our late Associate, Mr. Baily, were some enigmatical objects dug from the clay in Philpot Lane, resembling fossil wood. Another, from similar and light-coloured clay, dug up with fragments of tile or pottery, is now on the table. In length about 18 inches; circumference, 3 inches; somewhat arched, with a protuberance resembling a stop cock. The hardened clay contains frag

ments of birchwood-bark, burnt wood, and one fragment of tile, with two or three water-worn pebbles. Inspection by glass, however, reveals this as no fossil, but a band of hard-burned clay. Our VicePresident, H. S. Cuming, Esq., is inclined to a supposition, influenced by shape, that it is part of a pottery refuse, and had been used for luting the seggars of the furnace. British or Roman,-which? The

birch-bark and stones incline to the former.

Roman antiquities from the neighbourhood of Queen Victoria Street:

3. Auriscalpium of bone, representing the monoceros. The carving is very delicate and beautiful. Part of the horn is broken; but otherwise this fine toilette appendage is perfect.

4. A bronze pin apparently, from its quality, of the first century. It bears for terminal the Bacchic thyrsus. Also sundry needles of bronze, styli of iron, one being bent to a right angle.

Of medieval antiquities from the same neighbourhood:

5. A very fine sixteenth century ladle, of bronze, with circular bowl, without mark.

6. Also the iron bar of a bag for holding the sacred relics. The bar is 9 inches in length, of iron, with bronze belts etched with palmbranches; a central bronze boss, engraved on one side with the tau of St. Anthony, on the other with the rose of the Blessed Mother, sustains the suspensory loop. Close by, a small bronze chain was found also. Stowe tells us St. Anthony's Church, before the fire, stood in Budge Row; after the fire the church reappeared as St. Antholin, with the beautiful spire, remorselessly destroyed a few years since. This reliquary bar was found very near the site of the former church, and probably belonged to it.

7. From the site of Baynard's Castle, knives of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, two keys of sixteenth century, and an iron picklock. Also the blades of two very fine and excellently preserved misericords, 12 inches, exclusive of haft. Two were daggers similar to those used at Agincourt by our warriors for the dispatch of French knights unhorsed by wounds or otherwise. Also the chain of a censer. This is interesting as supplementing other ecclesiastical relics from the same locality, found in former years; notably a square candlestick of stone, with the name "Tomas", and a famous reliquary depicting the murder of the Saint.

8. A fine knife-dagger, in excellent preservation, found in digging a garden in New Church Road, Camberwell, in April last. The blade has been inlaid with gold, which is partly retained. The haft is of horn, cut in a deep spiral filled with silver, and edged by a threadpattern. The butt is of escalloped silver; and the general work of the weapon points to an Eastern origin. How came it to the locality of

its finding? Till the commencement of this century no highway had been cut to Camberwell, no road is shown in road-books, open country lay south of London. This may have been a hunting-knife.

9. A large, heavy, fine, well preserved Saxon knife, capable of inflicting a very terrible wound. The knife is handled with whale's bone, the butt being of iron. An excellent specimen, and dug up in the City in 1884.

10. A rare specimen of an instrument for raising a tooth, and so extracting it, as used by a medieval dentist, A.D. 1530. This ancient instrument presents a strong iron lever slightly bent, and terminating in two small but strong points, set in a bone handle about 2 inches in length. In itself extremely uncommon, a larger interest gathers about it, inasmuch as it is figured in a volume on medical science written by Octavius Horatianus, Rerum Medicarum, etc., A.D. 1530.

The Chairman read a paper upon a magical roll in the British Museum, and exhibited several drawings and wood-engravings in illustration of the subject. This paper will be printed hereafter.

Mr. Morgan, Mr. Birch, Mr. Cope, and the Rev. S. M. Mayhew, took part in the discussion which ensued.

Mr. W. H. Butcher read a paper on Devizes Castle, which will appear hereafter in the Journal.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 1884.

T. MORGAN, Esq., V.P., F.S.A., HON. TREASURER, IN THE CHAIR.

Mr. Howard C. Morris, 2 Walbrook, was duly elected an Associate. Thanks were ordered to be returned to the donors of the following presents to the Library:

To S. W. Kershaw, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., the Author, for a pamphlet entitled "Ancient Bridge Chapels." 4to.

To the Society, for the "Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte." 4 Parts. 1883.

Mr. E. P. L. Brock, F.S.A., Hon. Secretary, announced that, by a resolution of Council, a Sub-Committee had been appointed to consider the advisability of taking up an invitation held out by the South Kensington Exhibition authorities to exhibit archæological objects in connection with the contemplated Sanitary Exhibition.

Mr. Brock exhibited two small gold earrings and a very ancient frontal of thin gold plate, embossed with an elegant floral design. This fillet is of manifestly mortuary origin, and comes from a female skull found in the Troad.

Mr. Brock also exhibited, on behalf of Mr. C. Roach Smith, F.S.A.,

sketches of an umbo of a Saxon shield and a javelin-head, recently dug up on the Downs near Dartford, the precise locality denoted in a map made by Mr. Youens. The umbo is of the type of No. 18 in Plate XV of the Inventorium Sepulchrale. The objects were found in digging for a drain, about 4 feet below the surface.

Mr. Roofe exhibited a neolithic hammer-head found at Teddington, of polished stone.

The Chairman exhibited an egg-shaped ball of Egyptian zoned arragonite, or alabaster, from a Mosque in Cairo; piece of the rockfoundation of the great Colossus of Rhodes; piece of the marble Temple of Diana at Ephesus; and made some remarks upon the mythus of Diana, who is represented sometimes as male, and at other times as female.

Mr. Mackintyre North exhibited plates of his work entitled Leabhar Comun Nam Fior Ghael, on Celtic Arts in Britain, and made some remarks on the Celtic laws as illustrated by the remains. He also laid on the table several coins found on the site of old Winchester Palace and other places.

Mr. W. de G. Birch, F.S.A., Hon. Sec., read Mr. H. S. Cuming's paper "Finger-Nail Lore", which will, it is hoped, be printed hereafter.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1884.

T. MORGAN, ESQ., V.P., F.S.A., HON. TREASURER, IN THE CHAIR.

Thanks were ordered to be returned to the Society, for Archæologia Cantiana, vol. xv, 1883.

Progress was announced with respect to the exhibition of ancient and medieval objects connected with food and health, by this Association, at the forthcoming Sanitary Exhibition to be held in the South Kensington Museum during the ensuing summer.

Mr. G. R. Wright, F.S. A., Hon. Congress Secretary, described the general arrangements relating to the forthcoming Congress, which had been unanimously agreed to be held at Tenby, in South Wales, during the summer.

Mr. W. de Gray Birch, F.S.A., Hon. Secretary, exhibited a gem, and read a

NOTE ON AN ENGRAVED GEM FOUND AT CUDDY'S COve.

BY ALFRED C. FRYER, PH.D., M.A.

I had the honour, on June 7th, 1882, to lay before the British Archæological Association a few notes on the ancient hermitage of Cuddy's Cove in Northumberland. In that paper I endeavoured to show that 1 Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journal, xxxviii p. 335.

.

the natural cave at Howburn, on the southern slope of a long ridge of hills overlooking the valley of the Till, was the place which St. Cuthberht chose for his hermitage A.D. 676. Canon Raine1 supposed that this was the spot Bede2 alluded to; but Monsignor C. Eyre,3 in his learned history, believed that the hermitage was situated on a little islet about one hundred yards from Lindisfarne. In my previous paper 'I ventured to give my reasons for agreeing with Canon Raine's supposition, and I find that the Rev. Dr. Maclear holds the same view when he says: "First he retired to the mainland, and secluded himself in a recess near the village of Howburn, still known as Cuthbert's Cave.' "4

Being in the neighbourhood of Belford in the autumn of last year, I walked over to Cuddy's Cove in order to make a sketch of the hermitage. A fern of some botanical interest was growing in a cleft on the right hand side of the Cave. I was desirous to take it up by the roots, and having succeeded in this object, I discovered that the cleft behind where the fern had been growing was deeper than I expected. A patch of mould at the far end possessed a different hue from the surrounding earth, and when it was taken out I discovered that it contained some object that glittered in the sunlight. That object is the intaglio I have now the honour of exhibiting to the Association.

I ventured to send the engraved gem to Mr. Joseph Mayer, F.S.A., our Vice-President, whose knowledge of the history and value of intaglios is so well known. Mr. Mayer most kindly told me that it is a mediæval gem, with most probably a head of one of the Thirty Tyrants. It is, however, so rudely cut that he could not assign any positive name to it. "The stone", Mr. Mayer added, "is a nice one, a sard; but more valuable for the locality in which it was found than as a work of art."

The mould which surrounded it was analysed, and the result led me to believe that the gem was once enclosed in a wooden box. A trace of copper was found; but the percentage of iron was so large that it would appear the box either had iron fastening upon it, or that it contained some object made of this metal, which has long ago rusted away.

Mr. E. P. L. Brock, F.S.A., Hon. Secretary, exhibited a blue and grey Delft jug of the seventeenth century, found in London, with the letters G. R. (Gulielmus Rex) in a front panel.

Mr. Brock also read the following communication from Rev. C. Collier, M.A., of Andover:-"The London and South-Western Railway 2 Vit. S. Cuthb., xxii.

1 Raine's St. Cuthbert, p. 20.

3 History of St. Cuthbert, p. 31.

4

Conversion of the West.-the English, p. 105.