NOTES ON DUG-OUT BOATS. 165
bow to bow (for both ends were exactly alike) was 17 feet; the
width outside abeam between 24 and 25 inches, and so continued
with the exception of the last 12 inches of both ends; these sloped
inward 8 inches, the ends being straight (not rounded). and
about 8 inches wide. The sides and bottom were flat and
rectangular. At the thinnest part above the sides were little
more than half-an-inch thick, but about 3 inches below at the
junction with the bottom. And the bottom thinned to less than
2 inches in the middle. There was a peculiar arrangement at
each end, perhaps a kind of raised seat. There was no keel, no
ribs or stretchers at bottom, and no rowlocks. Nothing was
found with the boat.
Section showing the position of the Dug-out Canoe in the Thames Marshland.
Drawn by F. C. J. Spurrell, 1878.
Mr. Spurrell speaks of the old peat surface at the spot
where the boat was found as that on which Romans lived and
died. "Roman black pottery (I saw some Samian) and food
refuse, with tiles, were found between 8 and g feet below the
surface (which was 5ft 6in. O.D.) on and in the top of a layer of
peat; this was covered by tidal mud."' The section reproduced
here, he describes as "showing that in the peat layer a stream
1 "Early Sites and Embankments on the Margins of the Thames Estuary," Archival.
Journal, vol. xlii. (1885).