The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-08-10
UyEATTHED BY WORKMEN,
SOME MOST VALUABLE AN-
 TIoUES FoUNs.
Some Interesting Discoveries Which Have Been alade UninteDtionaiiy.

Some Interesting Discoveries Which
 Have Been Made Unintentionaiiy.
 How long has man been on earth? ''Six thousand years. or thereabouts," said the textbooks of a generation ago. But a i1avvy working at the big Assou- an dam the other day lit upon some sun-burnt bricks beneath the bed of the Nile that could not have been there less than twenty thousand years; and a ne- gro delving recently in Florida found fossilized human bones the age of which was estimated in 0thniel Marsh. the eminent geologist, at three hundred centuries at the very least. Quite a thrill of excitement ran through the sci- entific world when the announcement was made some few years back that a whole skeleton of a platyodon had been accidentally unearthed by .r1avvy's pick at Stockton, a small village in
 Warwickshire. The platyodon, it may be explained. is the biggest and rarest of the ichthyosanri-g lizard-like marine reptiles-the last of which per ished from off the earth millions on mill lions of years before the advent of the first man. Long prior, of course, to the Stockton find, paleonaloogists had Ire constructed" the platyodon, after a fashion, from the odd bones found at various times in different places. But it was reserved for the unlettered War wickshire excavator to bring to light the first and only complete, natural specimen. From it science has deduced all it is ever likely to know about these monsters of the Mesozoic seas. They probably measured some thirty feet in | length, with enormous heads, huge pro- | truding eyes eleven inches or more in diameter and jaws six feet long and furnished with from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty strong, conical pointed teeth.
 To another navvy we owe an intimate first hand knowledge of the methods of the ship builder of ancient Britain. He was digging deep down in the heavy clay lands of the Linclnchire fens, ex- cavating the foundations of a gasorne- | ter for the Briggs Gas company, when his spade struck something massive and
 heavy. It proved to be a prehistoric
 cessel of solid oak, forty eight feet in length; as perfect as when it left the
 builders hands tsnnumbered centuries
 previously. The patty soil had not only preserved it, but had also hardened al- most to the consistency of metal, sleav- ing each cut of the paleolithic axe, each nick and dent made by the drift stone adze, as clear and distinct as if it were of yesterday. Many years ago labor.
 ed employed upon a farm between Reading and Basingstoke noticed that the wheat crop of certain field grew
 unevenly. Neither deeper blowing noi
 extra manuring produced any improve ment. Along certain well-defined lines season after season, the corn came III stunted and shriveled, although on eith- CT side, not a hands breadth away, the same sowing produced the usual lusty crop, What was the hidden cause oi this phenomenon? he wondered; an6 one day commenced to dig straight
 down into the earth. He was rewarded instantly. Old Roman coins and me. dallions, rusty spearheads, tiles, pot
 sherds and other antiquities of like nature were upturned at every stroke
 of his spade. And presently, delvins
 deeper yet, he came upon the walls o
 buildings-the buildings of the long
 buried and utterly forgotten Roman city of Calleva. It is popularly knowr
 now as Silchester, after the name of tht
 adjacent village, and it has also beer
 christened the English Pompeii." Tht
 ruined forum is there, the basilica. tenn
 ples, baths, gardens, private homes--s complete Romano-B British town; in fact