286 Mr. J. Phillips on the Ancient and partly buried 



structions. They consisted of oak, yew, birch, alder, hazel and 

 fir; none of them, except the yew trees, remarkable for great 

 magnitude, though several of the oaks and pines were lone 

 and clean in the stem. It was noliced by the intelligent con- 

 tractor of the works, that the " yew trees, which were the 

 heaviest wood, lay at the bottom of the peat, the oaks above 

 these, and the fir trees, which were the lightest wood, nearest 

 the top." In consequence of thus lying at the top, the fir trees 

 were found partly burnt along one side in the process of pa- 

 ring and burning to which this morass has been subjected. 

 Amongst these trees many fir-cones, but very few nuts or 

 acorn-cups, were found, and not a single land, or freshwater, 

 or marine shell. Under the trees and peat was the same 

 whitish blue clay, very little pebbly, which has been noticed 

 before. I saw no trace of the passage of roots downward 

 into this clay : the root masses when examined appeared en- 

 tirely free from adhering earthy substances. The trees were 

 confusedly implicated together; and in general it may be held 

 that the whole mass of peat and trees had been accumulated 

 by drifting from some short distance, after having been so long 

 uprooted and exposed as to be free from earthy matter about 

 the bases, as well as generally deprived of long branches and 

 roots. In this manner we may, perhaps, understand how such 

 a heterogeneous assemblage of trees, requiring different soils 

 and circumstances for their growth, could be crowded into 

 this narrow receptacle. 



7. On looking round from this prostrate forest to the neigh- 

 bouring hills, we are struck by the contrast of the vegetable 

 forms. The most abundant of the trees in the neighbouring 

 hedgerows are ash and oak, the latter of which may, per- 

 haps, be considered as the native occupants of the soil ; but 

 where shall we seek for groves of indigenous yew, Scotch fir, 

 and birch ? There is probably not one natural wood of much 

 extent in all Holderness, neither are the neighbouring chalk 

 hills woody: it requiries care to rear plantations of selected 

 trees in a country exposed like this to piercing east winds. 

 As there is but one such layer of buried trees, may we not 

 suppose that some great change has happened to the climate 

 of Hplderness since the sera of their growth ? Do not the 

 parallel deposits on the moors of Westmoreland and Scotland, 

 at heights and in places which now for leagues around the 

 hills are overspread with heath, lead us to think that these 

 physical changes were of rather a general character? 



8. I now return to the consideration of the subsequent 

 growth of Scotch firs above the buried timber on a surface of 

 peat which is now 10 or 12 feet below the high- water mark 



