Mr. Hatchett on an artificial tanning Substance. 223 
A natural process very similar to this, I much suspect takes 
place in some cases where peat is formed ; I say in some 
cases, because the production of tanning matter does not seem 
to be absolutely a necessary consequence attendant on the 
formation of peat ; for in many places where the latter abounds, 
the former cannot be detected, whilst in others, it is very 
abundant, and acts powerfully on animal bodies which have 
accidentally been exposed to its effects. 
There are many facts of this kind upon record, such as the 
account of the bodies of the man and woman preserved in 
the moors near the woodlands in Derbyshire, and also of tne 
woman found in the morass at Axholm, in Lincolnshire.* 
Now I am much inclined to believe, that the tanning substance 
which so much abounds in these and some other peat moors, 
did not originally exist in the vegetable substances from which 
the peat has been produced, but that it has been and continues 
to be progressively formed ( under certain favourable circum- 
stances) during the gradual carbonization and conversion of 
the vegetable matter into peat. 
§ HI- 
In most of the former papers which I have had the honour 
to lay before the Royal Society, I have for greater perspicuity 
generally concluded with a recapitulation of the contents, but 
in the present case, this appears to be superfluous, as the whole 
may be concentrated into one simple fact, namely, that a sub- 
stance very analogous to tannin, which has hitherto been con- 
sidered as one of the proximate principles of vegetables, may 
at any time be produced, by exposing carbonaceous substances, 
* Phil. Trans. Vol. XXXVIII. p. 413. Ibid. Vol. XUV. p. 571. 
