21'8 Snhmar'we Forcfl on the eaji Coqji of England. 



The whole apppearance of the rotten vegetables we obferved, perfeftly refembles, accord- 

 ing to the remark of fir J. Banks, the moor which In Blankeney fen, and in other pares of 

 the eaft fen, in Lincolnfhire, is thrown up in the making of banks; barks, like thofc of the 

 birch tree, being there alfo abundantly found. This moor extends over all the Lincolnfhire 

 fens, and has been traced as far as Peterborough, more than fixty miles to the fouth of Sutton. 

 On the north fide, the moory iflets, according to the fifhermen, extend as far as Grimfby, 

 fituated on the fouth fide of the mouth of the Humber -, and it is a remarkable circumflance, 

 that, in the large traSs of low lands which lie on the fouth banks of that river, a little above 

 its mouth, there is a fubterraneous ftratum of decayed trees and fhrubs, exactly like thcfe 

 we obferved at Sutton ; particularly at Axholme ifle, a tra£l of ten miles in length by five in 

 breadth ; and at Hatfield Chafe, which comprehends one hundred and eighty thoufand acres. 

 Dugdale * had long ago made this obfervation in the firft of thefe places ; and de la Pryme f, 

 in the fecond. The roots are there, likewife, {landing in the places where they grew ; the 

 trunks lie proftrate. The woods are of the fame fpecies as at Sutton. Roots of aquatic 

 plants, and reeds, are likewife mixed with them; and they are covered by a ftratum of fbme 

 yards of foil, the thicknefs of which, though not afcertained with exaftnefs by the above- 

 mentioned obfervers, we may eafily conceive to correfpond with that which covers the ftratum 

 of decayed wood at Sutton, by the circumftance of the roots being (according to Mr. Ri- 

 chardfon's obfervations %) only vifible when the water is low, where a channel was cut, and 

 has left them uncovered. 



Little doubt can be entertained of the moory iflets of Sutton being a part of this extenfive 

 and fubterraneous ftratum, which, by fome inroad of the fea, has been there ftripped of its 

 covering of foil. The identity of the levels ; that of the fpecies of trees ; the roots of thefc 

 affixed in both to the foil where they grew ; and, above all, the flattened ftiape of the trunks, 

 ■branches, and roofs found in the iflets (which can snly be accounted fur by the heavy pref- 

 fure of a fuperinduccd ftratum), are fufficient reafons for this opinion. 



Such a wide-fpread aflemblage of vegetable ruins, lying almoft in the fame level, and that 

 level generally under the common mark of low water, muft naturally ftrike the obferver, and 

 ^ive birth to the following queftions : , 



1. What is the epoch of this deftruiStion ? 



2. By what agency was it elFeded ? 



In anfwer to thefe queftions, I will venture to fubmit the following refleitfons. 



The foffil remains of vegetables, hitherto dug up in fo many parts of the globe, are, on a 

 .clofe infpeftion, found to belong to two different ftates of our planet. The parts of vege- 

 tables and their impreffions, found in mountains of a cotaceous fchiftous, or even fometimes 

 of a calcareous nature, are chiefly of plants, now exifting between the tropics, which could 

 neither have grown in the latitudes in which they are dug up, nor have been carried and depo- 



• Hiftory of Embanking and Draining, chap, xxvii. t Philof. Tranf. vol. XXIf. p. 9S0. 



-X Philof. Tranf. vol. XIX. p. 518, 



fited 



