steps run all round. (3) The _exedrae_ at the back of the _schola_
having no existence in Lucas's Bath, were omitted from the conjectural
plan of the great Roman Bath. (4) Lucas's Bath being a plain hall
without piers, Sutherland assumed the same form for the hall of the
great Roman Bath, and altogether omitted the arcades that divide
it into three aisles. (5) Not to dwell on other errors built on the
baseless fabric of conjecture, it is evident that Sutherland imagined
a system of baths existed west of the great Roman Bath similar in
all respects to that known to exist east of the great Roman Bath.
But here, again, theory has been upset by facts. And now is a fitting
opportunity to draw attention to what has been actually discovered
west of the great Roman Bath, namely, the octagon Roman Well, which
I should be disposed to consider Major Davis's greatest discovery,
though I observe that hostile critics take no notice of this, possibly
because it is beyond the region of dispute. If any one, able to point
what he reads, still believes that the great Roman Bath was ever
practically opened up in the last century I would refer him to Mr.
Moore's able and suggestive paper, entitled 'Organisms from the
recently discovered Roman Baths in Bath,' read to the members of the
Bath Microscopical Society, in May, 1883. Once more I insist that we
must clearly separate what Sutherland knew from what he conjectured.
Indeed, Sutherland himself fairly draws the distinctions. On page 21
he says, 'This ground plot is exhibited in the plate annexed, as far
as the earth is cleared away. The remainder is supposed, and drawn
out in dotted lines.' These dotted lines represent a vast _terra
incognita_ covering, practically, the whole of the ground recently
opened up. That the existence of the great Roman Bath has been
transferred from the region of conjecture to the region of fact we owe
entirely to the enthusiasm and unwearied zeal of Major Davis, and no
fair mind can deny him the credit of being the practical discoverer of