or four maxillæ, scapulæ, and sacra, several vertebræ, femora, humeri, metatarsal and other bones, of two or three of these animals.[1] Professor Owen, who has particularly investigated the history of this species, (and who has kindly examined the bones from Lamel-hill,) believes it to have become extinct in England soon after the Roman invasion. The fossil bones of Bos longifrons are met with, in the eastern counties, associated with the remains of the elephant and rhinoceros. In the more recent alluvium, as that of the Severn at Diglis, the bones of this species are found with those of the red-deer and with Roman antiquities,—urns and Samian ware. They have likewise been found, by Wood and others, in ancient British barrows; and not long since within the remarkable entrenchments on the estates of the Duke of Northumberland, at Stanwick, in Yorkshire, associated with human remains and antiquities, probably British,[2] of the Roman period.
A few coins and counters were found at depths varying from six to ten feet. Some of these are very much worn and not to be deciphered. Two of them, however, are Nuremberg counters, of the sixteenth or seventeenth century; one of which bears the name of Hans Schultz. One of the coins is that of a Ferdinand; and there is a second brass Roman coin, perhaps of Trajan. The most interesting object found at the same level is, however, the brass seal of the keeper of a chapel dedicated to the blessed Mary at Morton Folliot. This seal is probably of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and bears the inscription, "S.' Cõmune C'todi Capelle bẽ Marie de Mort' Folliot." It has for a device, a figure of the Virgin and Child, and beneath, that of an ecclesiastic with the hands uplifted in the attitude of prayer. It is difficult to understand how this seal can have made its way from Morton Folliot in Worcestershire to Lamel-hill.[3]
The discovery of this seal and of the counters, at the depth
- ↑ The metatarsal bone of B. longifrons as compared with that of the common English ox, measures about 612 inches, the latter, 934 inches.
- ↑ Owen, Fossil Mammalia, pp. 475, 513. Proceedings of Archaeological Institute at York, Catalogue of Museum, p. 6. Professor Phillips informs me that the bones of this species were found some years ago, at York, in excavating into the mound on which the Norman Keep, called Clifford's Tower, stands.
- ↑ Castle Morton, Worcestershire, was anciently known as Morton Folliot.
