The whole of this part of the country abounding with morasses, it is the custom of the farmers to assist each other in turns with personal or specific labour, each man giving a route or frolick on the occasion, in order to obtain a large quantity of their contents for manure. Pits are dug generally twelve feet long and five feet wide. It was in digging one of these, on the farm of Mr. Masten, that one of the men, in thrusting his spade deeper than usual, struck something which he imagined to be a log of wood, but on cutting it to ascertain the kind, it was perceived to be bone: it was quickly cleared from the surrounding earth, and proved to be that of the thigh, three feet nine inches in length, and eighteen inches in circumference in the smallest part. The search was continued, and the same evening several other bones were discovered. The fame of it soon spread through the neighbourhood, and excited a general interest in the pursuit; and all were eager, at the expence of some exertions, to gratify their curiosity, to see the ruins of an animal so gigantic, of which few among them had ever heard. For the two succeeding days upwards of an hundred men were actively engaged, encouraged by several gentlemen, chiefly physicians, of the neighbourhood, and success the most sanguine attended their labours; but unfortunately the habits of the men requiring the use of spirits, it was afforded them in too great profusion, and they quickly became so impatient and unruly that they had nearly destroyed the skeleton; in one or two instances using oxen and chains to drag them from the clay, the head, hips, and tusk, were much broken; some parts being drawn out and others left behind. So great a quantity of water, from springs in the bottom of the pit, rose upon the men, that it required several score of hands to lade it out with all the buckets they could collect in the neighbourhood. All their ingenuity was exerted to overcome difficulties that every hour increased upon their hands; they even made and sunk a large coffer-dam, and within it found many valuable small bones. The fourth day so much water had risen in the pit, that they had not courage to attack it again. In this state we found it in 1801.