20 HANDY BOOK OF 
seen, only a wide extent of level or undulating ground, which 
bore the name of moss. 
Considerable tracts have, consequently, been reduced to 
sterility as regards the growth of timber, by exterminating 
edicts, and rendered less capable of administering to the 
wants of man : but with the progress of civilization has 
arisen a desire to appropriate them to purposes of agricul- 
ture ; and hence, throughout many parts of England, bogs 
have been drained : and rich fields of corn and homesteads, 
reward the industry of the agriculturist. 
Hatfield Moss, and that of Kincardine, with others of 
great extent, bear witness to Roman triumphs, as already 
mentioned. Others still are, or were, belonging to a period 
of unknown antiquity. The body of a woman was dis- 
covered, about a hundred years since, in a Lincolnshire 
peat-moor. It was covered with moss about six feet deep, 
and had lain there, apparently, for many ages. The nails, 
hair, and skin were scarcely, if at all, changed ; and the 
antique sandals on her feet told of a widely-different condi- 
tion of society. It may be assumed that she was a person. 
of some rank perhaps a British princess, or it might be a 
female Druid for sandals were confined to the higher 
classes, or to those who ministered in idol services. A 
human body was likewise exhumed, a foot deep in gravel, 
covered with eleven feet of Bog-moss. It was completely 
clothed in garments made of hair. This curious circum- 
stance occurred on an estate belonging to the Earl of Moira, 
in Ireland : and the fact of hair garments identifies it with 
a period antecedent to the one when British matrons learned 
the use of the distaff from their German sisters. No pro 
bable conjecture could be formed respecting the animal in 
whose skin the ancient Briton had been enwrapped ; but 
history leads to the conjecture, that the shaggy covering of 
the goat was among the first materials employed in clothing ; 
that afterwards the long hair of the caprine races was 
blended with the short and soft fur of other animals, by the 
