ON THE ALLUVIUM OF THE BEDFORD LEVEL. 
85 
wliicli the Romans occupied the country, and after they had so 
far protected this district from inundation, that timber trees 
could flourish within it ; for implements and Vv^eapons fabricated 
by that people are discovered beneath the peat. 
The further tracing of the mutations in the " Level" I shall 
defer until I notice the proceedings of the Romans within it ; 
which will necessarily claim my attention in the agricultural 
division of my subject ; and next, I will detail what I have 
gleaned that is interesting to the antiquarian. 
The earliest satisfactory information on the subject, that I 
can collect, is from Sir W. Dugdale, who, quoting the words of 
Herodian, in the life of Severus the Emperor, (Lib. iii.) writes^ 
"He therefore (Severus) first took care to make causeys over the- 
fens, that his soldiers might stand on firm ground, and, with 
ease passing over them, fight on the dry land.'^ This fact has been 
confirmed by the discovery of a causeway extending from Deauver 
in Norfolk to Peterborough in Huntingdonshire, which was 
sixty feet broad, composed of gravel three feet in depth, and is 
now covered with moor from three to five feet in thickness. 
This moor stratum, says Mr. Thompson, (History of Boston, 
page 277), is generally about a foot thick, upon and within it 
are found stages horns, warlike instruments, and other remains 
of the ancient inhabitants, and upon its surface, several canoes 
of a particular form and construction have been discovered." 
Implements and weapons of the Aborigines, also funereal vessels, 
domestic utensils, warlike and other instruments, and coins of 
the Romans are frequently found beneath and within the moory 
stratum. Stone cells, mallets_, and arrow-heads of the rudest 
form, constructed of flint j a singular flat stone, not unlike a 
hone, with its surface as if polished by the rubbing of the edges 
of stone or metallic celts, resembling fig. 21, page 131, in the 
Pictorial History of England," and said to be used for sharpening 
bone, were lately found in the fen at Marham in Norfolk. Brass 
celts of the usual forms are numerous ; one also has been found, 
