A section across the middle of another hall in the Basilica, 32 feet 6 inches in length, called the Ærarium, is shown in Fig. 10. It appears that we have here evidence of two fires, separated by an interval of time, during which the 6 inches of “mortar and concrete with broken tiles” was accumulated. Beneath one of the layers of charred wood, a valuable relic, a bronze eagle, was found; and this shows that the soldiers must have deserted the place in a panic. Owing to the death of Mr. Joyce, I have not been able to ascertain beneath which of the two layers the eagle was found. The bed of rubble overlying the undisturbed gravel originally formed, as I suppose, the floor, for it stands on a level with that of a corridor, outside the walls of the Hall; but the corridor is not shown in the section as here given. The vegetable mould was 16 inches thick in the thickest part; and the depth from the surface of the field, clothed with herbage, to the undisturbed gravel, was 40 inches. [Picture: Fig. 10: Section within a hall in the Basilica of Silchester] The section shown in Fig. 11 represents an excavation made in the middle of the town, and is here introduced because the bed of “rich mould” attained, according to Mr. Joyce, the unusual thickness of 20 inches. Gravel lay at the depth of 48 inches from the surface; but it was not ascertained whether this was in its natural state, or had been brought here and had been rammed down, as occurs in some other places. [Picture: Fig. 11: Section in a block of buildings in the middle of the town of Silchester] The section shown in Fig. 12 was taken in the centre of the Basilica, and though it was 5 feet in depth, the natural sub-soil was not reached. The bed marked “concrete” was probably at one time a floor; and the beds beneath seem to be the remnants of more ancient buildings. The vegetable mould was here only 9 inches thick. In some other sections, not copied, we likewise have evidence of buildings having been erected over the ruins of older ones. In one case there was a layer of yellow clay of very unequal thickness between two beds of débris, the lower one of which rested on a floor with tesseræ. The ancient broken walls appear to have been sometimes roughly cut down to a uniform level, so as to serve as the foundations for a temporary building; and Mr. Joyce suspects that some of these buildings were wattled sheds, plastered with clay, which would account for the above-mentioned layer of clay. [Picture: Fig. 12: Section in the centre of the Basilica at Silchester]