340 On the Combuftion of Dead Bodies 
But, -with refpect to the lower clafs in a populoug 
nation, fuch a procedure would appear to be at 
leaft impracticable; and at this period, it is 
evident, that there is not fo much wood growing, 
exclufive of gentlemen’s plantations, as would. 
conftruct rogi for the inhabitants who at pres 
fent live in the country; fo that there would 
be no wood left for hufbandry, houfe-building, 
manufactures, &c. » That this country was they 
very populous, and perhaps more fo than at pre 
fent, appears from the great number of thefe 
cairns in every part of it; feveral of which 
feem to have anfwered the purpofe of large 
burying grounds, particularly one I faw, whilft 
difmantling, in which fragments of bones 
were equally difperfed through every different 
part—It was at leaft fixty feet in diameter, 
and the putrefaction was ftill going on fo freely 
in it, in confequence of the internal parts being 
expofed to the air, that the workmen who 
came to it on a foggy morning, were fo power- 
fully affected by the fmell, as to become fick at 
ftomach: it is fituated within three hundred yards 
of the coemetery in which the iron triangle was 
found. ! 
But farther, if ever wood became fcarce, in a 
country where combuftion of the dead was con- 
ftantly practifed, from being deftroyed by war, 
accident, &c. the ‘dead bodies muft of necef- 
fity be confumed with coppice wood, {mall 
branches 
