NOTES ON A-PRE-HISTORIC BURIAL-PLACE AT MEGDALE. 4 1 



Naturally, the discovery caused much excitement, particu- 

 larly so when it was learned that the quarrymen had previously 

 found a knife and a coin in the vicinity of the skeletons. There 

 was no longer doubt in the public mind that a horrible murder 

 had been perpetrated, and that somehow the knife and the 

 coin would turn out to be important links in the solution of 

 the mystery. Tlicn it was remembered, that " years ago, men 

 were missed in a peculiar way in a wood which runs near to 

 the quarry, and that these disappearances were never solved 

 at the time." The coin " had nothing on it " to indicate its 

 date ; and as the knife was fifteen feet away from the skeletons, 

 its connection with the " horrible find " will not appeal to the 

 readers as very cogent. Nor is what follows conclusive,— 

 " Thirty years ago, the rock at the quarry extended right up 

 to the railway, and the site where this cave has been dis- 

 covered would then be on the top of a barren waste and far 

 away from any human dwelling, this place being severed from 

 the main road leading to Bakewell by the River Derwent." 

 Murderers, surely, would not drag their victims from the cover 

 of a wood to an open and con.spicuous waste to dispose of them. 

 But apart from this, the statement is not correct. The old 

 village of Matlock is hardly half-a-mile away ; while the 

 Ordnance Survey of 1836 — 64 years ago — shows the Bridge 

 as already surrounded with houses, with Megdale Farm close 

 to the spot, as at present. The pressman, however, consolingly 

 assures his readers that " there will in no case be any necessity 

 to raise a hue and cry for the perpetrators of the old-time 

 murders, as the whole of them have probably followed their 

 victims and paid the debt of nature." 



The fact is, the " horrible find " was a pre-historic inter- 

 ment. Dr. Moxon, of Matlock, kindly sent the writer some 

 particulars, a few days after the discovery, which go far to 

 prove this. The rough diagram which he appended by way of 

 illustration is here reproduced. " The bones," he stated, " were 

 not found in a cave, but simply about two or three feet below 

 the surface, between two vertical beds of limestone, and 



