11
CROSSES
Stukeley delin.
E. Kirkall sculp.
So much for Margidunum, of which we may say,
Nunc passim vix relliquias vix nomina servans.
In passing forwards towards Leicester, between here and the river Wrek, I found the Foss road began to be very obscure, not only where it has been ploughed up in some places, but where it goes over a grassy common: the reason is, travellers have quite worn it away, because of the badness of the roads; and the negligence of the people so far from repairing it, that they take away the materials. Moreover, you are oft in danger of losing it through the many intersections of cross roads; and sometimes it is inclosed with pastures, or passes under the sides of a wood: therefore upon every hill-top I made an observation of some remarkable object on the opposite high ground, which continued the right line; so that by going strait forwards I never failed of meeting it again. I observed too, that at such a time of the day exactly, the sun was perpendicular to the road; for it continues the same bearing throughout: this I tried by the compass soon after I left Lincoln, and when I came to High-cross, where it crosses the Watling-street, and at intermediate places; finding it always butted upon the same degree, to surprising exactness. At Abketilby in the vale of Belvoir, and thereabouts, in the quarries is a vein of rag-stone wholly made of shells, covered with a thin vein of good hewing stone: this is in one corner of that great vale, under the Lincolnshire Alpes.