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state of preservation, and impregnated with vitriolic water. It was 
quite soft, but hardened on being exposed to the air. No one could 
identify the body ; it was merely remembered that the accident by 
which he had thus been bui'ied in the bosom of the earth had taken 
place above fifty years ago. All inquiries about the name of the sufferer 
had already ceased, when a decrepit old woman of seventy, supported 
on crutches, slowly advanced towards the corpse, and knew it to be that 
of a young man to whom she had been promised in marriage more than 
half a century ago. She threw herself on the corpse, which had all the 
appearance of a bronze statue, bathed it with her tears, and fainted with 
joy at once more beholding the object of her affections. It is easier to 
conceive than trace the singular contrast afforded by that couple ; the 
one buried above fifty years, still retaining the appearance of youth ; 
while the other, weighed down by age, evinced all the fervency of 
youthful love. 
The question of time during wliich animal remains may 
be preserved in peat will suggest another intimately connected 
with it — as to the period during which the peat has been 
forming, and which will not always be uniform, but depend 
materially upon the damp, humid nature of the soil, the 
plants growing there and annually adding to its depth, and 
also whether the moss has been originally a forest or always 
a swampy marsh, as the one will be of a firmer consistence, 
from the stems of trees intermixing with it, and the other 
soft and spongy, being composed almost entirely of bog moss 
and a few other aquatic plants, hence the depth as also the 
consistence of such peat bogs will differ yery considerably. 
Familiar examples of the more spongy bogs may be seen in 
Chat Moss, in Lancashire, and Solway Moss, on the confines of 
Scotland and England, and of the more firm in Hatfield Chace. 
The depth of the former may be conjectured from the fact 
that at the Battle of Solway, in the reign of Henry YIII., 
1542, when the Scotch army commanded by Oliver Sinclair 
was routed, an unfortunate troop of horse, driven by their 
fears, plunged into this morass, which instantly closed upon 
them. This tale was only traditional, but it is now considered 
as corroborated, as a man and horse in complete armour were 
