2 HULL SCIENTIFIC AND FIELD NATURALISTS’ CLUB. 
Other results have also followed—much more land is now 
cultivated, and the health of the public has improved. Agueand 
low fever are now comparatively rare, and further improvements 
will be felt as time goes on. 
Goole and Thorne Moor, a large area of waste and boggy 
land, comprising about 6,000 acres, is situated between the 
Ouse on the east, and Thorne on the south-west, about three miles 
from the former, and two or two-and-a-half from the latter. In the 
other direction it commences near Crowle, and terminates within a 
field or two of the Hull and Doncaster railway—so close, in fact, 
that the stacks of peat can be seen from the carriage windows. 
Each farm on the Goole side extends from the river to the moor, 
and also includes a portion of it as far as the parish boundary, 
the Blackwater Dyke. On the south side the moor is separated 
from the Great Central Railway at Medge Hall by a broad dyke 
only. 
When an observant person first visits the moor he desires to 
know the origin of the immense, though now decreasing bog. 
On looking round he can see the ships and buildings of Goole, 
the ‘* Towers ’’ at Carlton, the church at Thorne, the mills and 
chimney at Crowle, and the hills of Lincolnshire and the East 
Riding. ‘The district is so flat that there is nothing worth calling 
a hill from Askern to the Trent. The whole area of this moor 
and that of Hatfield Chase was formerly a swampy forest of fir, 
oak, ash, birch, hazel, yew, and other trees. 
During Roman times the rivers were not confined by 
banks, and, no doubt, at spring tides floods were frequent. ‘The 
trees lying on the damp earth were soon covered by mosses and 
other plants, perhaps in more luxuriant growth than at present. 
As these plants decayed. fresh ones grew, each leaving something 
to benefit its successor. For centuries this growth and decay went 
on, but though the soft plants decayed, the buried trees only 
partially rotted, and many of them are even now, if carefully 
dried, fit for the cabinet maker. The growth of peat, ze, of 
rotten plants, is still going on, though in consequence of a system 
of drainage, well carried out, the moor is getting more solid, 
and is gradually sinking. When builders are excavating at Goole 
for foundations of buildings, tree trunks and roots are frequently 
found, When the Hull and Doncaster Railway was con- 
structed several acres of land in the part now called Glew’s Field 
were stripped of the top soil to form embankments, and large 
numbers of trees were uncovered, and the majority of them 
were burned. ‘The roots may still be seen from the line. Some 
of the oak trunks found near Thorne were very large. Abraham 
de la Pryme states that on Mr. Edward Canby’s moor an oak tree 
