Confident that nothing could be done without having a perfect command of the water, the first idea was to drain it by a ditch; but the necessary distance of perhaps half a mile, presented a length of labour that appeared immense. It was therefore resolved to throw the water into a natural bason about sixty feet distant, the upper edge of which was about ten feet above the level of the water. An ingenious millwright constructed the machinery; and after a week of close labour, completed a large scaffolding and a wheel twenty feet diameter, wide enough for three or four men to walk abreast in: a rope round this turned a small spindle, which worked a chain of buckets regulated by a floating cylinder; the water emptied into a trough which conveyed it to the bason; a ship’s pump assisted, and towards the latter part of the operation, a pair of half barrels in removing the mud. The second day the water was lowered so that they began to dig, and in a few hours were rewarded with several small bones. Every farmer with his wife and children, for twenty miles round in every direction, with waggons, carriages, and horses, flocked to see the operation; and a swamp always noted for being the solitary and dismal abode of snakes and frogs, became the active scene of curiosity and bustle; the greater part astonished at the whim of an old man in travelling two hundred miles from his home, to dig up as a treasure, at incredible risk, labour, and expence, a pile of bones, which, although all were astonished to see, many imagined fit for nothing better than to rot and serve for manure. For several weeks no exertions were spared, and those the most unremitting were required to insure success; bank after bank fell in; the increase of water was a constant impediment, the extreme coldness of which benumbed the workmen: Every day bones and pieces of bones were found between six and seven feet deep, but none of the most important ones. But the greatest obstacle to the search was occasioned by the shell marle which formed the lower stratum; this, rendered thin by the springs at the bottom, and by the weight of the whole morass, always pressed upwards on the workmen to a certain height; which, without an incalculable expence, it was impossible to prevent. Twenty-five hands, at high wages, were almost constantly employed at work so uncomfortable and severe, that nothing but their anxiety to see the head, and particularly the under jaw, could have kept up their resolution. The patience of employer and workmen was at length exhausted, and the work relinquished without obtaining those interesting parts without which it was impossible to form a skeleton.