WAITE ; REMAINS OF FALLOW DEER FROM GOOLE MOOR. 169 
‘In the Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society part of 
the skull of a deer, dug out of the peat on Thorne Moor, is preserved. 
‘In 1747 the body of a woman was found 6 feet deep in a peat 
bog near Haxey ; from the antique sandals on the feet it was judged 
the body had been buried many years (Phil. Trans., 1747, vol. xliv, 
p- 575). Abraham de la Pryme states that in the 17th century the 
body of a man was found at the bottom of a turf-pit, the skin tanned 
by the peat water, but the flesh and bones decayed.’ Mr. Bunker 
adds that as the peat is removed, in all probability, other remains will 
be found and, it is hoped, preserved. 
Writing on March 5th, my friend further informs me that a large 
quantity of bones has been found in the Ouse during the last ten 
days, and through the kindness of Mr. W. H. Bartholomew, engineer 
to the Aire and Calder Navigation Company, he has had free access 
to them. They consisted of jaws and skulls of the horse, ox, and 
dog ; also a few ribs, vertebrae, and leg-bones. Part of a whale’s 
jaw was also found. Mr. Bunker adds:—‘ The explanation was 
simple, the dredger was at work on a spot where bones were formerly 
landed from vessels on their way to Sheffield.’ 
I showed the bones of Dama vulgaris to Mr. Percy F. Kendall, 
who promised to have them analysed for me, and he has kindly sent 
the following report. 
NOTE ON THE 
MODE OF PRESERVATION OF THE BONES. 
PERCY F. KENDALL, F.G.S., 
Lecturer on Geology at the Yorkshire College, Leeds. 
THE bones were shown to me by Mr. Waite, and I was at once 
struck with the fact that they were, at the same time, extremely light 
and remarkably elastic. Such a bone as the pterygoid could be 
doubled up so that the ends met, and upon being released it imme- 
diately sprang back to its normal form. 
The ‘colour of the bones was a rich walnut-brown. It occurred 
to me that, though I had never heard of such an operation taking 
place in nature, the peaty water which came in contact with the 
Skeleton might have contained a considerable percentage of the 
humic acids, such as are never absent from water flowing off peaty 
land, and that these acids had simultaneously removed the mineral 
matter by forming soluble salts of lime, etc., and had tanned the 
gelatine which forms a species of skeleton to each bone. With the 
assistance of Dr. Cohen and Mr. Proctor, both of the Yorkshire 
College, I was able to ascertain that this was the case. 
