The size of the ditch in several places is still considerable. To the east of Heddon-on-the-Wall, it measures thirty four feet across the top, and is nearly nine feet deep; as it descends the hill from Carvoran to Thirlwall, it measures forty feet across the top, fourteen across the bottom, and is ten feet deep. Westward of Tepper Moor is a portion which, reckoning from the top of the mound on its northern margin, has a depth of twenty feet. The dimensions of the fosse were probably not uniform throughout the line; but these examples prepare us to receive, as tolerably correct, Hutton’s estimate of its average size. ‘The ditch to the north,’ he says 'was as near as convenient, thirty-six feet wide and fifteen feet deep.'[20] The care with which the fosse was dressed, has varied with the taste of the overseer and the forbearance of the enemy. In some tracts, the work presents as smooth and trim an aspect as a modern railway cutting; in others, marks of haste, carelessness, or sudden surprise, appear. The curious circumstance which Hodgson describes in the following paragraph may be seen in more than one locality:— 'A little west of Portgate, the appearance of the fosse is still, to the eye that loves and understands antiquity, very imposing and grand. The earth taken out of it lies spread abroad to the north, in lines just as the workmen wheeled it out and left it. The tracks of their barrows, with a slight mound on each side remain unaltered in form.'[21] [Illustration: The works near the 18th mile-stone West of Newcastle.] [Illustration: The works half a mile west of Carraw.] [Sidenote: THE VALLUM.] The VALLUM or TURF WALL, is uniformly to the south of the stone Wall. It consists of three ramparts and a fosse. One of these ramparts is placed close upon the southern edge of the ditch, the two others of larger dimensions[22] stand, one to the north, and the other to the south of it, at the distance of about twenty-four feet. The annexed sections of the works exhibit their present condition. They are drawn to the scale of seventy-five feet to the inch. The Wall is in these parts, unhappily, entirely removed. The ramparts, in some parts of the line, stand, even at present, six or seven feet above the level of the neighbouring ground.[23] They are composed of earth, mingled, not unfrequently, with masses of stone. Occasionally, the stone preponderates to such an extent as to yield to the hand of the modern spoiler, ready materials for the formation of stone dikes. In several places they are being quarried with this view. The fosse of the Vallum is of a character similar to the fosse of the stone Wall; but, judging from present appearances, its dimensions have been rather less. It, too, has been frequently cut through beds of stone.