In Cumberland, there are several Roman inscriptions on the face of the ancient quarries. About a mile west of Birdoswald, and little more than a quarter of a mile south of the road, is Coome Crag, which, besides other markings, presents the following inscription—
SE · · RVS
AI · · · ·
· · · VSTUS
This perhaps may be read—Severus Alexander Augustus. The most remarkable of this class of Antiquities, however, is the ‘Written Rock of the Gelt,’ near Brampton. The lithograph on the opposite page is a very accurate representation of this curious relic of antiquity. As the scar is nearly perpendicular, and the river Gelt washes its base, it is not without some difficulty that the inquiring visitor can give it a satisfactory examination; it will, however, well reward his exertions, and the beauty of the surrounding scenery will give additional zest to the ramble. |INSCRIPTIONS ON THE QUARRIES.|The inscribed part of the rock is fully fifty feet above the water. The letters seem to have been made by connecting with a chisel or pick a
number of holes drilled in the rock in the required order; at all events, the terminations of the strokes have been thus formed. Some doubt exists as to the precise reading of the inscription, but the general purport of it is this:—The vexillarii of the second legion under an optio called Agricola, were, in the consulship of Flavius Aper and Albinus Maximus (A.D. 207), employed to hew stone here for the Romans.[[42]] It is piteous, when surveying so interesting a relic of antiquity, and one which has outlived the accidents of upwards of sixteen centuries, to observe that it has been approached by men who cannot sympathize with the mighty dead, and who care not what violence they do to the feelings of those who can. To the defacement, as I believe, of some portion of the inscription, the names of F. GRAHAM, W. HARDCASTLE, T. THOMPSON, W. NELSON, have been carved upon the rock. Notoriety is easily earned, but it is not always of an enviable character.
CHARACTER OF THE FACING-STONES.
The exterior masonry of the Wall consists, on both sides, of carefully squared free-stone blocks[[43]]; the interior, of rubble of any description firmly imbedded in mortar. The character of the facing-stones is peculiar, yet pretty uniform. They are eight or nine inches thick, and ten or eleven broad; their length, which is perhaps their characteristic feature, not unfrequently amounts to twenty inches. The part of the stone exposed to the weather is cut across ‘the bait,’ so as to avoid its scaling off by the lines of stratification; the stone tapers towards the end which is set into the Wall, and has a form nearly resembling that of a wedge. The cut shews its usual form. Owing to the extent to which the stones are set into the Wall, the necessity of bonding tiles—so characteristic of Roman masonry in the south of England—is altogether superseded. There does not appear to have been a single tile used in any part of the Wall. Stones of the shape and size which have now been described were just those which could be most easily wrought in the quarry, most conveniently carried on the backs of the poor enslaved Britons to the Wall, and most easily fitted into their bed. The uniformity in their appearance is such as to enable us, after a little practice, at once to recognize them in the churches, castles, farm-buildings, and fences of the district through which the Wall runs.