Note 152 — THE FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATRE, COMMONLY CALLED THE COLOSSEUM.

Etudes Statistiques sur Rome, par le Conte P. N. C. de Tournon. Paris, Didot, 1821, 8vo., 4 vols., and deuxième edition, 3 Volumes en 8vo avec atlas, Paris, 1858.

The fine set of drawings made for the French Government at that period are now preserved in the British Museum, and fully bear out what I had stated before I had seen them. They clearly shew that the French excavations were not carried down more than ten feet. The tops of the arches of the lower passage are shewn in the drawings, but these excavations appear to have been stopped by water rising to that height. See Plate III.