In 1782 Pennant examined one of these rude barks formed from the trunk of an oak, which he thus describes: "Near a place called Kilblain, I met with one of the ancient canoes of the primeval inhabitants of the country, when it was probably in the same state of nature as Virginia when first discovered by Captain Philip Amidas. The length of this little vessel was eight feet eight inches, of the cavity six feet seven inches, the breadth two feet, depth eleven inches, and at one end were the remains of three pegs for the paddle. The hollow was made with fire in the very manner that the Indians of America formed their canoes. Another was found in 1736, with its paddle, in the same morass. The last was seven feet long, and dilated to a considerable breadth at one end, so that in early ages necessity dictated the same inventions to the most remote regions."[30] In 1791 the minister of the parish describes another found by a farmer while digging for peats, at a depth of between four and five feet from the surface, and four miles from the highest reach of the tide, resting apparently on the alluvial soil which is there found beneath the moss. Near to the same spot a vessel of mixed metal, and apparently of great antiquity, was recovered, and numerous relics of various kinds, including what are described as anchors, oars, and other naval implements, have been found even at a distance of twelve miles from the present flood-mark--attesting at once the former populousness of the district, and the very remote period to which these evidences of its occupation belong.[31] At a depth of seven or eight feet in the Moss of Barnkirk, in the immediate neighbourhood of Newton-Stewart, Wigtonshire, another canoe of the same character as those already described, was dug up in 1814, and has been preserved, owing to its being converted by the farmer into the lintel of one of his cart-sheds. Mr. Joseph Train mentions having seen "a ball of fat or bannock of tallow, weighing twenty-seven pounds,"[32] found in the moss immediately above the canoe; and which no doubt was a mass of adipocere, indicating the spot where some large animal had perished in the moss: possibly sinking along with the rude British vessel that lay below. On the draining of Carlinwark Loch, Kirkcudbright, in 1765, a stone dam, an ancient causeway constructed on piles of oak, the vestiges of an iron forge, and other remarkable evidences of human industry and skill, were brought to light, including various canoes, described, like those of Lochar Moss and others found in Merton Mere, as apparently hollowed by fire.[33]