VOL. XXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 633 



human ; bat I cannot affirm them to be so : and they lie sometimes at so great 

 a distancp. from the ribs and shank-bones, that should any one compute the 

 length of the monster, from one to the other, they might calculate to be 200 

 or 300 yards, as reasonably as 22 feet. The teeth and bones are in such 

 numbers, that, with the help of a labourer or two, you might, in a few hours, 

 gather a bushel of them. 



From this account, it may not be unreasonable to infer : that the altar, here 

 dedicated to the Tyrian Hercules, was very famous and much frequented : that 

 there were sacrificed on it oxen, and such like creatures, as bisons and bonasus, 

 with which the country hereabouts anciently abounded. The entire head and 

 horns of one having been lately dug up in a marshy ground; resembling exactly 

 those creatures, as they are described by Gesner, and others; and that their 

 bones being all thrown together, and, according to the superstition of those 

 times, laid under the foundation and pavement of the fort, are the very same 

 bones, teeth, skulls, ribs, &c. which, by the rivers washing away the bank, 

 are now discovered and brought to light. And, if I might be allowed to guess 

 a little further, I might think it not impossible, that as Erkelens in Gelderland, 

 is Herculis Castra, and Hertland in Cornwall, was Herculis Promontorium, so 

 on the recess of the Romans, the Saxons, who succeeded them, might call this 

 noted station Hercul-ceaster, and by corruption Colceaster, or Colchester, its 

 modern name. And, what may somewhat confirm the conjecture, the adjacent 

 town of Corbridge, which has risen out of its ruins, is called in the charter of 

 H. I. whereby that king gave it to the secular canons of Carlisle, before the 

 erection either of the priory or bishopric, Colbruge, and Colburgh, the same 

 as Col-ceaster; the bridge, from whence it may seem to take its denomination 

 being of a much later erection. That oxen used to be sacrificed to Hercules 

 there needs no other evidence than the altar itself, on which an ox's head, with 

 sacrificing instruments, are delineated. You will receive by the Oxford carrier 

 a great many teeth and bones, by which you may be able to give a much better 

 judgment, whether they are human or not, than I can; only I would observe 

 this, that if it do not appear that they agree perfectly with the teeth and bones 

 of oxen, it will not follow that therefore they must be human, and that there 

 were men of prodigious stature who made use of them ; seeing there were in 

 these parts other creatures of very great size, to whom they might belong, and 

 of whose teeth and bones we have now very few specimens to compare them with. 



An Account of the Mosses in Scotland. By George^ Earl of Cromarlie, ^c. 



F. R. S. N° 330, p. 296. 



There are many grounds in Scotland called mosses, where the country people 

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