first, to have been broken by the force employed; but on the fractured portion being lifted up, it was found to be the lid of a coffin, the lower part still remaining in the clay, containing a quantity of fluid in which a human skull was visible; and on the water being thrown out it was soon found that the coffin contained a perfect skeleton. The bones were carefully removed, the other contents of the coffin examined, the lower part taken up, and the whole conveyed to the Scarborough Museum, where they are now deposited. The coffin proved to have been made from the trunk of an oak—
Ingentem quercum, decisque undique ramis
Constituit tumulo—
roughly hewn at the extremities, and split with wedges. It had been hollowed by chisels of flint about two inches in width, but must have been cut down with some much larger tool, the marks of its strokes being three inches in length. The outer bottom of the coffin was in length seven feet nine inches, and its extreme breadth three feet three inches. In the bottom, near the centre, is an oblong hole about three inches long by one wide, most probably intended to carry off any fluids arising from the decomposition of the body. There is little difference in size between the lid and body of the coffin. No resin appears to have been used to fix the lid. It was merely loosely laid on, and kept in its place only by the uneven fracture of the wood, the broken portions corresponding on each side when brought into their proper situations.
The skeleton found in the coffin was quite perfect and of an ebony colour[1]. The bones are much larger and stronger
- ↑ This remarkable circumstance was thus satisfactorily accounted for by the Dean of Westminster (Dr. Buckland) in a communication addressed by him to the editor of the Literary Gazette. "The extraordinary, and as far as I
