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absurd explanation that ever was offered, for this very 
common find of a mass of stearine preserved in the peat. Only 
fancy, a Urus, or Bos primigenius, floundering in a quagmire, 
and sinking down to suffocation, and after the lapse of count- 
less ages, being converted — hide, horns, bones, and flesh — into 
twenty- seven pounds of adipocere ! and this most wonderful 
chemical change to have been produced in a peat-bog, the 
most antiseptic substance in nature. 
Rude boats or canoes, scooped from the solid trunks of 
trees, are often found in these peats, gravel, or ancient water- 
beds. Sometimes their short and clumsy paddles are found 
buried with them, and in rare instances, a rope or cable 
made of moss or heather, attached to a stone close by, 
clearly shews us the primitive means of anchorage, for these 
first attempts at naval architecture and navigation. A very 
perfect specimen of one of these primaeval boats has been 
lately found in the valley of the Aire, and presented, through 
me, by Mr. Hartley (the owner of the land in which it was 
discovered) to the Leeds Museum. However, as boats of 
very simple construction have been improvised, especially 
in remote and inaccessible districts, and used long after the 
Roman occupation of this island, they cannot, as a class, be 
fairly called pre-historic. 
In 1843, the Rev. Thos. Foster presented to the Royal 
Irish Academy, an ancient wooden table and dish, and com- 
municated the following notice of them: — "The wooden 
table and dish to which this notice relates, were dug up in a 
peat-bog, near the road leading from Donaghy , in the County 
Tyrone. They were found about ten feet beneath the surface. 
With the dish was a large heap of hazle nuts. Each article 
was scooped out of a solid piece of wood, apparently fir. The 
table is of an oblong shape, with the ends curved inwards 
towards the centre. The four short legs, about four and a 
half inches high, are in the shape of truncated cones, and 
