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traced 6ft. or 8ft. west of Lucas's Bath. (2) Furthermore, starting
from the centre of the west side of Lucas's Bath, a line had been
traced to the east steps of the great Roman Bath. These are plain
historical facts, open to everyone who will look into the plans of our
baths, as given by Sutherland in 1763, and by Prebendary Scarth in
his 'Aquae Solis' in 1864. But our City Architect has been charged with
suppressing these facts for his own glorification. Now, Sir, I think
no unprejudiced man, who has heard Major Davis's addresses and read
his books, can justly bring this charge. If I mistake not, he fairly
stated the case in 1880, both in his address before the Society of
Antiquaries, and in his lecture at the Bath Literary Institution.
He has most certainly concealed nothing in his published works 'The
Bathes of Bathe's Ayde' and 'Guide to the Roman Baths.' In the former
work he says (p. 81), 'Dr. Sutherland indicates a large bath westward
of that which had been discovered in his time, in fact there can be
little doubt that the steps at the eastward end of a great bath had
then been found;' in the latter, whilst alluding to the published
plans of Sutherland, he says (p. 10), 'These plans indicate a large
bath westward of that discovered in 1754 (? 1755), in fact the
eastward steps of a bath had then been found.' Here then is a full and
candid admission of all the facts known about the great Roman Bath in
the middle of the last century; and this anyone can see by reference
to the map in Prebendary Scarth's 'Aquae 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 me