inelegant building, adorned with an arcade curiously decorated with grim or grotesque masks on the keystone of each arch. It was erected on the site of older and less substantial tenements, in the year 1781; and in digging for a foundation for it, in a stratum of laminated clay that lies beneath a thick bed of sand, another primitive British canoe was discovered, hollowed as usual out of a single trunk of oak.[43] Another is noted to have been found about 1824, in Stockwell, near Jackson Street, while cutting the common sewer; and a fourth, at a much higher level, on the slope of Drygate Street, immediately behind the prison.[44] In 1825 a fifth canoe was discovered, scarcely an hundred yards from the site of the former at the City Cross, when digging the sewer of London Street--a new thoroughfare opened up by the demolition of ancient buildings long fallen to decay. This boat, which measured about eighteen feet in length, exhibited unusual evidences of labour and ingenuity. It was built of several pieces of oak, though without ribs. It lay, moreover, in a singular position, nearly vertical, and with its prow uppermost, as if it had foundered in a storm. [Illustration] To these older instances recent and large additions have been made. The earlier discoveries seem to point to a period when the whole lower level on the north side of the river, where the chief trade and manufactures of Scotland are now transacted, was submerged beneath the sea. What follows affords similar evidence in relation to the southern bank of the Clyde. Extensive operations have been carrying on there for some years for the purpose of enlarging the harbour of Glasgow, and providing a range of quays on the grounds of Springfield, corresponding to those on the older Broomielaw. There, at a depth of seventeen feet below the surface, and about 130 feet from the river's original brink, the workmen uncovered an ancient canoe, hewn out of the trunk of an oak, with pointed stem, and the upright groove remaining which had formerly held in its place the straight stern. The discovery was made in the autumn of 1847; and the citizens of Glasgow having for the most part a reasonable conviction that boats lose their value in proportion to their age, the venerable relic lay for some months unheeded, until at length the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland made application for it to the Trustees of the River Clyde, and the rude precursor of the fleets that now crowd that noble river is safely deposited in their museum. Meanwhile the excavators proceeded with their labours, and in the following year another, and then a third canoe of primitive form, were disclosed on the southern bank of the Clyde. One of these, which has been since removed to the Hunterian Museum, measures 19⅓ feet long, by 3½ feet wide at the stern, 2 feet 9½ inches wide midway, and 30 inches deep. The prow is rather neatly formed with a small cut-water, near to which is an