Forests of Holderness. 283 



so much of a common character, that, except in cases where 

 the trees appear under circumstances likely to elucidate the 

 condition of the country at the time of their growth, there is 

 little utility in adding to the mass of general description on 

 this subject. The following remarks, suggested by two visits 

 to a part of Holderness in which the excavation for a large 

 drain, east of, and nearly parallel to, the river Hull, has laid 

 bare a considerable number of buried trees and other vegeta- 

 ble accumulations at a level greatly below that of the tide of 

 the Humber would therefore, not have required publication, 

 but for their bearing on local, if not general, problems con- 

 cerning the growth and inhumation of 'alluvial' forests. 



2. It is well known that the tide rivers which unite in the 

 estuary of the Humber flow through a vast extent of level 

 country, a great portion of which is at present protected from 

 the inroads of the sea by a general system of embankments. 

 The surface of this level region is naturally either a thick de- 

 posit of fine silt or sediment left by repeated ancient inunda- 

 tions, or a sterile bed of vegetable reliquiae called turf or peat 

 moor. A large portion of the peat moors lying below the 

 level of the tide, advantage has been taken of this circum- 

 stance to introduce the muddy water into particular situa- 

 tions where it is suffered to stagnate and drop its fertilizing 

 sediment. Trees of several kinds, as oak, alder and fir, lie 

 prostrate in the peat, and there are few questions belonging 

 to the modern geological periods which it is more important 

 to resolve than that which relates to the condition of the coun- 

 try where these trees grew. 



3. The country of Holderness is entirely separated from 

 the rest of the Yorkshire levels by the ridge of the chalk 

 wolds : it is a large triangular district, bounded on one side 

 by the German Ocean, on another by the estuary of the 

 Humber, and on the third by the declining plane of the chalk. 

 It is not properly a level, but rather a minutely undulated low 

 district, full of insulated hills and devious ridges, which in one 

 place on the coast swell to 130 feet in height. The winding 

 hollows which embrace these hills in the southern part of 

 Holderness are generally filled with sediment from the tide, 

 which, if allowed tree access, would cover them 5, 10, or more 

 feet deep. Besides, there are many little hollows secluded 

 amongst the hills, where formerly detached lakes existed) 

 which have left various characteristic deposits. The title of 

 'Holderness and the Isles of Holderness', applied to this 

 tract by some of our old writers, must at one time have been 

 very appropriate. 



The general basis of this whole region is a [pass pf cla\ of 

 2 O 2 



