( 4>3 ) 
IV. Jn Account of the Dead Bodies of a Man 
and Woman, which were preferred 49 Years in 
the Moors in Derbyfhire j being pan of a 
Letter from Dr. Charles Balguy of Peter- 
borough, to Cromwell Mortimer, M. D. 
(Z^. S. Sec. 
I T is very common to fee dead Bodies which have 
been preferved by Art for many Ages : But that 
they (hould lie unchanged by means of the Soil only 
in which they were Interred, will appear ftrange to 
molt People; nor (hould I have taken upon me to 
relate it, had it not happened in the Neighbourhood 
where I was born $ and that I had an Opportunity 
therefore of informing myfelf well concerning it. 
The Perfons of whom you have the following 
Account were loft in a great Snow on the Moors , in 
the Parifh of Hope y near the Woodlands in Derby- 
Jh'tre , January the 14^1,1674; and not being found 
'till the 3d of May following (the Snow lafting 
probably the greateft part of that Time) they then 
fmelt fo ftrong, that the Coroner ordered them to be 
buried on the Spot. The Man’s Name was Barbery 
he had been a confiderable Grafter, and was well 
known by the People that found him : but being re- 
duced in his Circumftances, was then going off with 
his Servant-Maid for Ireland. They lay in the 
Peat-Mofs 28 Years 9 Months before they were look- 
ed at again, when fome Countrymen, having obser- 
ved, I fuppofe, the extraordinary Quality of this 
Soil in preferving dead Bodies from corrupting, 
were curious enough to open the Ground to fee if 
thefe Perfons had been fo preferved, and found them 
1 i i x no 
