Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood Part 36

{95b} Quarterly Journal, Geol. Soc., vol. x.x.xi., p. 125.

{95c} Geological Survey, pp. 202206.

{95d} Geological Survey, pp. 203206.

{95e} Ibidem.

{96a} Ibidem, pp. 198222.

{96b} White's Dictionary of Lincolns.h.i.+re. Article on the Geology by W.

J. Harrison, F.G.S.

{97a} Quoted Ibidem.

{97b} Geolog. Survey Memoir of S. Yorks and N. Linc. p. 3.

{97c} Mr. F. M. Burton, F.L.S., F.G.S., Naturalist, 1894, p. 251. In "A Selection of Papers relative to the County of Lincoln," read before the Lincolns.h.i.+re Topographical Society, published by W. and B. Brooke, 1843, there is a paper by W. Bedford on the Geology of Lincoln. He divides the rocks into 26 beds, commencing from the north of the Cathedral and descending to the bed of the Witham. He gives a very interesting coloured section, showing these different strata, where the springs arise beneath the oolite; then the ferruginous gravels, the clunch clay, and the lias underlaying all.

{97d} Geolog. Survey, "Around Lincoln," pp. 3335.

{98a} Article on Geology, White's Lincolns.h.i.+re, p. 70.

{98b} Ibidem.

{98c} Taken from a paper read by Surgeon-Major Cuffe, V.D., before the British Medical Congress, held in London, August, 1895.

{99a} The original a.n.a.lysis of Mr. West gave some properties not noticed by Professor Frankland as follows:-

In one gallon.

Chloride of Sodium 1,215,175

Pota.s.sium 2,453

Magnesium 86,146

Calcium 105,001

Bromide of Sodium 5,145

Iodide of Sodium 2,731

Bi-carbonate of Soda 45,765

Carbonate of Lime 9.381

,, Iron 0.277

Silica 0.339

{99b} Smith's Dict. of Bible. Art., "The Salt Sea," and The Dead Sea and Bible Lands," by F. de Saulcy.

{99c} Geolog. Survey Memoir, p. 210.

{99d} Information by R. Harrison, at one time resident at the farm where the well was sunk. Geolog. Survey, p. 205.

{99e} The Roman generals are supposed to have imported Belgian workmen, and by their aid, with their own soldiers, and the forced labour of the Britons, to have made the huge embankments, of which there are remains still existing in "The Roman Bank," near Sutterton and Algarkirk, Bicker, and other places. The Car d.y.k.e, skirting the Fens, on the west, some four miles from Kirkstead, was their work, and a few miles westward is Ermine Street, the great Roman highway, which stretches from Sauton on the Humber to London.

{101a} The revolution effected in the drainage of the Fens was not accomplished without considerable and even violent opposition on the part of many of the inhabitants, who thought that their interests were being ruthlessly disregarded, and in some cases even their means of subsistence destroyed. The state of affairs at this period, and the measures resorted to, are very graphically described in the historic novel, "A daughter of the Fens," written by Mr. J. T. Bealby. This book the present writer would recommend to visitors to our Lincolns.h.i.+re health-resort, as likely to give them an interest in the neighbourhood.

{101b} Mr. H. Preston, F.G.S., of Grantham, goes into the matter rather fully in the "Naturalist" of 1898, pp. 247255; as also Mr. F. M. Burton, F.L.S., F.G.S., of Gainsborough had previously done, in the "Naturalist"

of 1895, pp. 273280.

{102} Dr. Oliver (in his "Religious houses on the Witham," appendix pp.

165167) says: "The honours of the Witham may be inferred, not only from the consecrated spots and temples (once existent) on its banks, but from its very names. It was called Grant-avon, or the divine stream; and Cwaith-Ket, _i.e._ the work or river of "Ket" (Ked or Keridwen, the Druid G.o.ddess Ceres). Ket survives in Catley, not far from the Witham. The river was wors.h.i.+pped as her embodiment. Oliver adds: "The sacred places on its banks were more numerous, perhaps than those of any other river in Britain." It will be apparent, to anyone that the name Witham is not a river name at all, but that of a village, the village near which the river rises. In the time of Leland, the antiquary (circa 1550) it was known as the Lindis. He says: "There be four ferys upon the water of Lindis betwixt Lincoln and Boston. Shut (Short) Fery, Tatershaul Fery, Dogd.i.c.k Fery, Langreth Fery" (quoted by Mr. G. Sills, Archl. His. Wash., "Lin. N. and Q.," Nat. His. section, July, 1897, p. 108). But Mr. Taylor tells us (in his "Words and Places," p. 130) that "throughout the whole of England there is hardly a single river name which is not Celtic," and accordingly the Celtic name of the Witham was Grant-avon (avon meaning "river"), while the town upon it was Grantham. It was also known by the names "Rhe" and "Aye," the former Celtic, the latter Saxon or Danish.

"Lin. N. and Q.," vol. ii., p. 222.

{103a} "Introduction to vol. on "The Geology arounde Lincoln."

Government Geolog. Survey Memoir.

{103b} "Naturalist," 1895, p. 274.

{103c} The late Mr. W. H. Wheeler, one of our ablest engineers, held the opinion that there was a time when the Witham, by a somewhat similar process, instead of pa.s.sing through "the Lincoln Gap," if it then existed, found its way through a low tract of country northward into the Trent, and so pa.s.sed out into the Humber. See "Lincolns.h.i.+re Notes and Queries," vol. i., pp. 53, 54, and 213. It would almost seem that the poet Drayton had an idea of something of this kind, when he says of the Witham-

"Leaving her former course in which she first set forth, Which seemed to have been directly _to the north_, She runs her silver front into the muddy fen . . . coming down, . . . to lively Botolph's town."

Polyolbion, song xxv.

It may here be added that the antiquary, Stukely, who at one time lived at Boston was of opinion, that the Witham, at one period, diverged from its present channel a little below Tattershall, about Dogd.y.k.e, to the east, and through various channels, which are now drains, found its way to Wainfleet and there debouched into the sea. And an old map of Richard of Cirencester, in the 14th century, confirms this.

{105a} "Naturalist," 1895, pp. 230, 231.

{105b} This "celt," as they are called, has been exhibited by the writer at more than one scientific meeting. It is still in the possession of Mr. Daft, who would doubtless be glad to show it to any one wis.h.i.+ng to see it.-N.B.-the term "celt" is not connected with the name Celtic or Keltic, but is frem a Latin word celtis, or celtes; meaning a chisel, and used in the Vulgate, Job xix., 24, the cla.s.sic word is clum.

{106a} Gov. Geolog. Survey, "Country round Lincoln," p. 161, now in the possession of Mr. Fox, land surveyor, of Coningby.

{106b} S. B. J. Skertchly, "Fenland," p. 344.

{107} A representation of Chaucer on horseback, in a MS. on vellum, of the Canterbury Tales, in the possession of the Duke of Sutherland, and reproduced as a frontispiece to "Ill.u.s.trations of the lives of Gower and Chaucer," by H. J. Todd, F.S.A., 1810, shows the anelace hanging from a b.u.t.ton on the breast of his surcoat. It was usually worn at the girdle, except in the case of ecclesiastics. M. Paris mentions Petrus de Rivallis as "gestans anelacium ad lumbare, quod cleric.u.m non decebat."

The present writer possesses what he believes is an anelace, which was found among the ruins of a cottage on the Kirkstead Abbey estate some 25 years ago. He exhibited it at a meeting in London of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute, in November, 1882, where it was described as a "beautiful knife handle, decorated with nielli of Italian character." It is of blue enamel, beautifully chased with an elegant filigree pattern in silver.

It has also been p.r.o.nounced by an authority to be Byzantine work. As being found near the ruins of Kirkstead Abbey, we might well imagine it to have hung at the girdle, or from the breast, of some sporting ecclesiastic; and to have belonged to the jewelled blade,

Wherewith some lordly abbot, in the chase, Gave to the deer "embossed" his _coup de grace_.

{108a} The conserving properties of the mud ooze is remarkable. The "Philosophical Transactions" mention a human body dug up in the Isle of Axholme, of great antiquity, judging by the structure of the sandals on its feet, yet the skin was soft and pliable, like doe-skin leather, and the hair remained upon it.--"Lincs. N. & Q." Vol. III., p. 197.

{108b} This relic of not less that 1700 years ago is further interesting from the fact that the bone, of which it is made, was proved to be that of a horse, yet the horse must have been smaller than any of the present day, except the Shetland pony. The Britons are known to have had horses of great size, which excited the admiration of Caesar; which survived in the huge war-horse carrying the great weight of the mail-clad Norman knight in the active exercises of the tournament; and the descendants of which are the s.h.i.+re horses of to-day.-"The Old English Warhorse," by Sir Walter Gilbey. We may add here, as an interesting fact, that there is evidence to show that the horses of our neighbourhood were specially valued, as far back as the time of the Commonwealth. Cromwell wrote to an acquaintance, "I will give you sixty pieces for that black [horse] you won [in battle] at Horncastle"; and on the acquaintance not jumping at the offer, he wrote again, "I will give you all you ask for the black you won the last fight."-Quoted, "Animals and their Conversations," p. 85, by C. J. Cornish.