175 
found by peat diggers in the place where it was always sup- 
posed the affair had happened. The skeleton of each was well 
preserved, and the different parts of the armour easily distin- 
guished {LyelVs Geology j iii.,p. 185). Sir C. Lyell says Hat- 
field Chace appears clearly to have been a forest 1800 years 
ago. Fir trees have been found there 90 feet long, and sold 
for masts and keels of ships ; oaks have also been discovered 
there above 100 feet long. In Hatfield Moss, as well as that 
of Kinkardine and several others, Roman roads have been 
found, covered to the depth of eight feet by peat. All the 
axes, arms, and other utensils found in British and French 
mosses, are Roman ; so that a considerable portion of the 
European peat bogs are evidently not more ancient than the 
age of Julius Caesar. Nor can any vestiges of the ancient 
forests described by that general always on the line of the 
great Roman way in Britain be discovered, except in the 
ruined trunks of trees in peat; but, as he also observes, 
several of the British forests which are now mosses were cut 
at different periods by order of the English Parliament, 
because they harboured wolves and outlaws. Thus the Welsh 
woods were cut and burnt in the reign of Edward L, as were 
those of Ireland by Henry II., to prevent the natives from 
harbouring in them and harassing his troops {Lyelly iii., p. 181). 
Hence there will alwaj^s be a difficulty in determining with 
certainty the antiquity of a peat bog, unless some definite 
articles are discovered which are unmistakeably of Roman, 
Saxon, or Mediaeval manufacture. 
In the present instance, we are not in possession of such 
materials, unless the shoes are allowed to be sufficient evidence 
on the one part. With regard to the human skeleton, which, 
as I have already stated, although found in the same moss, was 
not near to the shoes, and may, therefore, have been in no way 
connected with them, although very probably of early date, 
and several hundred years may have elapsed since its inter- 
