But I am assured, that all these things are generally found at the bottom of the peat, or very near it. And indeed, it is always very proper to be well and faithfully informed of the exact depth and place, where any thing of these kinds is found; whether it is in the earth above the peat, or in the clob; or in the true peat, or at the bottom of it; which will greatly assist us in forming a just judgment of the real antiquity of the things that are found, or at least of the time they have lain there. Besides this, as they formerly used to cut out the peat in large plots here and there, leaving spaces full of peat between those pits (whereas now they draw off the greatest part of the water by pumps, and so clear out all the peat regularly as they go on); so it must be carefully observed, whether whatsoever is found here be dug out of these old peat-pits, or not; for axes, and other things, may have been formerly dropt into these pits, before they were filled up again with earth, and may now be dug out of them again. My father has now in his possession an iron hatchet, not greatly differing from the modern form, which was found lying flat at the very bottom of the peat: it was covered with a rust near half an inch thick, and the handle was to it, which seemed to be of beech-wood, but was so soft, that it broke in bringing it up: but as the person is dead, who found it, I can’t say whether it lay in an old peat-pit, or no. Mr. Osgood found, some years ago, an urn, of a light brown colour, and large enough to hold above a gallon, in the true peat about eight or ten feet from the river, near a mile and a half west of this town, in Speen-moor. It lay about four feet below the level of the ground, and about one foot within the peat; and over it was raised an artificial hill, about eight feet higher than the neighbouring ground; and as the whole hill consisted of both peat and meadow-ground intermixed together, it plainly appeared, that the peat was older than the urn; and that the persons, who raised the hill, must first have dug a large hole in the peat, to bury the urn there, and so formed the hill of the peat and meadow-ground mixed together. Round the hill, where the urn lay, they had made also many half-circular ridges, with trenches between them, one beyond another, in this manner: [Illustration] Where _a_ is the river, and _c_ the hill; and the half circles shew some of the ridges, the number of which Mr. Osgood has now forgot. The urn was broke by the peat-spade, and it came up only in small pieces, so that nothing was found in it; and no body happened to be there at that time but the peat-cutters. No coins of any sort have been found in the peat. But there may, perhaps, be a variety of things at the bottom of it: but as the peat is always full of water, which is never quite drained off, so it is not an easy matter to examine the bottom. I beg leave to assure you, my Lord, that I am, with great respect and esteem,