We must be very careful before we accept such an argument. It is as certain as inference can make it that an original crossing, perhaps older than that of London, passed the Thames in the neighbourhood of Lambeth Bridge. The road which the Romans made or straightened from the south-east, that is, the first great main road from the Straits of Dover to the north, the Watling Street, points directly to this spot, and the presence of good going on the south bank at least strengthens the conjecture, coupled as it is with the antiquity of Westminster as an inhabited site, and the long-established ferry which plied for centuries from the neighbourhood of Lambeth Palace to the opposing “Horseferry” Road. The formation of the surface-soil in this neighbourhood is well worthy of study. Immediately in the bounds of Lambeth Church and Palace the superficial hard gravels (which have been approaching the river for two miles and leaving a belt of marsh to their right or north) touch the stream. Not quite opposite, but nearly so--quite nearly enough for the establishment of a ferry--the large isolated patch of gravel which lay between the two mouths of the old brooks and which supported the nucleus of Westminster affords a good landing-place. It is true that there is (or was) a patch of bad ground immediately to the north of this gravel, but very soon the rising ground which is now marked by Constitution Hill and Grosvenor Gardens gave good going and led the track up, nearly coincident with Park Lane, to “Tyburn,” whence the Watling Street makes straight for the north and west along the line of the modern Edgware Road. For a mile or two farther up, until the gravel in Chelsea was reached, opposite the steep land of Battersea crossing may have been difficult, but between Battersea and Chelsea it was certainly as easy in early times, or easier than at London Bridge, and after that, of course, as one goes westward the passage of the river becomes easier and easier until on the present western limits of London, at Brentford, you have what is almost certainly an original ford across the river, at low tide at least, and one which some authorities have regarded as the crossing place of Julius Cæsar.