Peacock : The Fenland Soils. 



only found in the upper peat bed they may be called modern, for 

 they can only have been with us from 100 to 2,500 years, and 

 may have come with the Romans. But when they are found in 

 both beds, above and below the alluvial deposits, they have been 

 growing and seeding in Lincolnshire from 13,000 to 15,000 years. 



Peat bogs have been known to swallow up men and animals 

 and to preserve them for ages by making the skin tough, and in 

 a manner to tan it. A great number of animal and other matters 

 have been found in a wonderful state of preservation in this 

 county during the last 300 years. In June 1747, in a peat bog 

 in the Isle of Axholme, the body of a woman was found six feet 

 below the surface. Her hair and nails were unaltered, and her 

 skin was tanned and remained soft, strong, and pliable. From 

 the antique sandals on her feet she appeared to ' that ingenious 

 artist and skilful antiquary, Mr. George Ventur, that the body 

 could not be earlier than Edward I. or Henry III.' If Ventur's 

 opinion is correct we arrive at the date of the deposit of the 

 woman's body in the peat.* 



In the Oak forests of the old peat Squirrels lived and piled 

 their store of Hazel nuts for winter food, Bees collected honey 

 from the fragrant flowers of the Deer-haunted glades. The 

 Marten Cat caught birds in the trees, and the Fox, Wild Dog, 

 and Bear found a congenial home in the denser thickets. The 

 Wild Boar and four species of Deer were rangers of the woods 

 and shared the pastures with two breeds of Oxen. Pike and 

 other fish lived in the pools, which were also the home of the 

 Otter and Beaver, while Swans and other birds too numerous to 

 name visited the lakelets, and the Herons hunted the reedy 

 shallows as they do to-day. Later on came man ! First, he 

 who worked the paleoliths and mesoliths, later still the man 

 who chipped the earlier neoliths, and still later the pygmy man, 

 and lastly the ground stone man of the polished and drilled 

 neoliths. Perhaps I had better add also that after the stone age 

 came the copper man, not represented in the Fenland, then the 

 bronze and iron men, and, finally, our own time of steel and 

 claptrap. The dug- or burnt-out oaken boats of the ancient 

 Britons were caulked with Mosses which are now growing with 

 us, as they hunted the wild fowl or caught the fish which still 



* See Phil. Trans., 1747, p. 571. While I was lecturing-, the President 

 (Marten Perry, M.D.) of Spalding- Gentleman's Society, placed the original 

 sandal on the table, which I had no idea was in existence. It has been in 

 the society's possession ever since. It is figured in the Phil. Trans. (1747) 

 and in the minute book of the Spalding Gentleman's Society of that date. 



Naturalist, 



