Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/68

38 and some of the iron is of unusual hardness. They are uniformly covered with a very thick rust, and many of them are almost entirely oxidised, and thickly encrusted with pebbles. Many of these nails and pieces of iron present distinct traces of wood adhering to them. A few fragments of decayed wood, apparently oak, were also found. The pieces of iron were scattered throughout the tumulus, but in several instances, it was remarked that three or four such pieces were found by the side of, and around, undisturbed skeletons. Although it must be admitted that among the fragments of iron there are some which can hardly have been used in this way, I still think it may be pretty confidently inferred that the bodies had been deposited in wooden coffins, of which these nails, cramps, and plates of iron, were fastenings.

There is considerable variety in the soil of which the mound consists. Beneath the external loam, it has a more clayey character, and is mixed with stones, often of considerable size, which are found in greatest number immediately above and around the skeletons. In other parts, it is more mixed with sand, whilst in others it is almost unctuous in appearance. That the tumulus, even at its base, is of artificial character, appears to be proved by the clay, stones, and gravel, which are found for upwards of two feet below the undisturbed skeletons, being very generally and extensively mottled with a white calcareous matter. Chalk or lime would indeed appear to have been mixed with the soil, which effervesces briskly on the addition of dilute muriatic acid. At a depth varying from thirteen or fourteen feet from the summit, the natural subsoil of the district appeared, in the form of a bed of moist sand and gravel of a greyish colour, such as is often found in the beds of rivers. This must have been deposited on this elevated ground at the time when, as we learn from geology, the vale of York was traversed by an estuary which connected the mouth of the Tees with that of the Humber. This bed of gravel was explored to a depth of between six or seven feet, in the centre of the tumulus, without any indications of its having been previously disturbed being detected.

A remarkable seam of a moist black matter, from one to two inches in thickness, was observed to stretch with little interruption through the centre of the mound at a level of