There is a great bath-house built for the local garrison at Ravenglass which is even more striking, as its walls are standing almost their whole height. It was excavated in 1881. The position of the buildings at Cilurnum, outside the fort walls, at the foot of a slope and close to the river, where the soil has been washed down and has covered them up, accounts for their excellent preservation. The baths are entered now (by a flight of wooden steps) just at the point where the original entrance doorway stood. An outer lobby led into what appears to have been the unrobing and anointing room, a very large flagged chamber, with seven round-arched stone niches on the west wall. There has been much speculation about their use, and {96} nothing certain is known, but it is suggested that they may have been cupboards for the bathers to hang their clothes in. From this apartment one passes into a lobby, giving access to the hot rooms, to the right, and to the cold rooms, with a fountain, to the left. Straight forward is the final "rest-and-amusements" room, which has flues in the form of a cross. Turning out of this is another chamber, also with cross-flues, and with a semi-circular apse, out of which opens a splayed window, 4 feet wide. Roman window-glass, of a bluish-green, was found on the ground outside this window. The glass is not very transparent, having probably been poured out on a flat surface when made. It is very rare to find examples of Roman windows, because buildings are hardly ever preserved up to the window-level. These walls are twenty-three courses of stones high, or about 9½ feet. There are two hot rooms, one leading out of the other, and both heated by hypocausts. The jambs of the doorway between them are single stones, each 6 feet high. The walls of one chamber stand 7½ feet high. The furnace lies beyond these two rooms and is immediately behind the wall with the seven niches. [Illustration: THE BATH-HOUSE AT CILURNUM, SEEN ACROSS THE NORTH TYNE.] There are remains of the concrete vaultings of the rooms, and in several instances there are double thresholds, where the floor levels have been raised. {97} We see also drainage arrangements for carrying the water down to the river. Altogether this is a most interesting building, and it is a pity that no inscriptions have been found here which would fix definitely its date and its purpose. As seen across the North Tyne it is very inconspicuous, because the grassy river-bank hides it. The soil having in the course of ages washed down and buried the building, now that it has been excavated it stands in a hollow. However, the seven arches of the unrobing-room are very plainly seen. The yew-tree, behind the cows in the picture, marks the situation of the furnace for the heating arrangements of the Commandant's house. The western abutment of the Roman bridge can sometimes be seen in the water under the trees to the right.