The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath | Page 6

see by reference to the map in Prebendary Scarth's 'Aqu? Solis'--the diagram (copied from Spry) there being almost similar to Sutherland's conjectural plan of the baths, except that the section of Lucas's Bath, correctly represented in Sutherland's map is figured upside-down by Spry and Scarth. It is quite clear what Sutherland knew of the great Roman Bath; it is equally clear that when he proceeded, on the strength of his very limited observations, to draw a conjectural plan of the whole bath, he fell into absolute errors, such as, commonly enough, spring out of hasty generalisations based on scanty data. Thus, he gives the dimensions of the enclosure of the great bath as 96ft. by 68ft.; whereas, as a matter of fact, they are 111ft. by 68ft. How is this discrepancy to be explained? 'A Citizen' in your last weekly issue, says 'The alleged discrepancies in the measurements, which Mr. Davis has used to prove his case, are but the differentiations of the external measurements with the sinuous subterranean windings.' These are indeed brave words, indulged in rather to diminish Major Davis credit than to rescue Sutherland; but a truer explanation of the real discrepancies stares any man in the face who will open Dr. Sutherland's work. There is no occasion to be wise beyond what is written: 'When, as we may suppose, they have run a length proportionable to their width, they compose a bath, which may indeed be called great, 96ft. by 68ft.' The fact is, Sutherland supposed that the dimensions of the great Roman Bath would observe the same relative proportions as Lucas's Bath. The room of Lucas's Bath, let it be remembered, was 43ft. by 34ft., or rather 30ft. 6in. from the face of the pilasters. In other words, the length was equal to the diagonal of the square of the base. Then, having observed that the base of the room of the great Roman Bath--formed by the length of Lucas's Bath--was 68ft., Sutherland assumed that its length also would be equal to the diagonal of the square of base, namely 96ft. This patent error, assuming that the unknown would have a relative correspondence with the known quantities, was the fruitful source of many more. (1) The dimensions of the outer rectangular area formed by the room of the great Roman Bath being false, the dimensions of the inner rectangular area formed by the water surface of the bath were necessarily false also. (2) Steps were observed at one end only of the water surface of Lucas's Bath; therefore it was inferred that steps would be found at one end only of the water surface of the great bath, the eastern end as figured in the maps of 1763 and 1864, whereas we now know that steps run all round. (3) The exedrae at the back of the schola having no existence in Lucas's Bath, were omitted from the conjectural plan of the great Roman Bath. (4) Lucas's Bath being a plain hall without piers, Sutherland assumed the same form for the hall of the great Roman Bath, and altogether omitted the arcades that divide it into three aisles. (5) Not to dwell on other errors built on the baseless fabric of conjecture, it is evident that Sutherland imagined a system of baths existed west of the great Roman Bath similar in all respects to that known to exist east of the great Roman Bath. But here, again, theory has been upset by facts. And now is a fitting opportunity to draw attention to what has been actually discovered west of the great Roman Bath, namely, the octagon Roman Well, which I should be disposed to consider Major Davis's greatest discovery, though I observe that hostile critics take no notice of this, possibly because it is beyond the region of dispute. If any one, able to point what he reads, still believes that the great Roman Bath was ever practically opened up in the last century I would refer him to Mr. Moore's able and suggestive paper, entitled 'Organisms from the recently discovered Roman Baths in Bath,' read to the members of the Bath Microscopical Society, in May, 1883. Once more I insist that we must clearly separate what Sutherland knew from what he conjectured. Indeed, Sutherland himself fairly draws the distinctions. On page 21 he says, 'This ground plot is exhibited in the plate annexed, as far as the earth is cleared away. The remainder is supposed, and drawn out in dotted lines.' These dotted lines represent a vast terra incognita covering, practically, the whole of the ground recently opened up. That the existence of the great Roman Bath has been transferred from the region of conjecture to the region of fact we owe entirely to the enthusiasm and unwearied zeal of Major Davis, and