which are still preserved at Chesterholm. The pillars which supported the floor of the hypocausts were of different shapes and diameters; some of them were portions of square columns, as in the annexed example, some circular, like the balusters of stairs, as may be seen by the specimens of them in the garden at Chesterholm. The Romans themselves, Hodgson remarks, seem to have treated the fallen works of their predecessors here with very little ceremony, when they cut down the handsome columns of halls and temples into pillars for sooty hypocausts.
About a furlong west of the camp is a copious spring, from which the water was taken by a channel formed of large stones into the station. The water still, in some measure, follows its ancient track, as the appearance of the herbage shews, and pours itself, by a covered passage, into the Chineley-burn on the opposite side.
H. Burdon Richardson, Delt.John Storey, Lith.
MILE STONE AT CHESTERHOLM.
In the vicinity of the camp is an object of peculiar interest. On the line of the ancient Roman road which skirts its northern rampart, stands a mile-stone at the spot where the soldiers of Agricola or Hadrian placed it. The opposite lithograph shews it in the foreground; the camp is in the distance. It is upwards of six feet high, and is nearly two feet in diameter. There are traces of an inscription on its western face, but scarcely a letter can now be deciphered.|ROMAN MILE-STONE.| Another mile-stone formerly stood to the west of this, but it was removed and split up by its tasteless owner, into two gate-posts. Horsley says that it bore the inscription—
BONO REIPVBLICÆ NATO.
To one born for the good of the republic—
an inscription which, supposing it to be perfect, though this is a little doubtful, is happily contrived to be complimentary to each successive emperor. The Romans, with wise policy, paid great attention to their roads; the stones which they erected at every mile were generally inscribed with the name of the consul or emperor under whose auspices they were made. Horsley mentions another mile-stone, which was to the east of the present one.
Close by the mile-stone is a tumulus of considerable size.
In the house and grounds of the late Mr. Hedley, are preserved some very valuable antiquarian remains. A very fine altar to Jupiter is reserved for subsequent description. Another, whose focus is reddened by the action of fire, is here introduced on account of the evidence which it affords, in corroboration of the conjecture of Horsley, that Little Chesters was the Vindolana of the Romans, where, according to the Notitia, the fourth cohort of the Gauls was stationed.