344 ^^^ Trees of Great Britain and ireland 



ingeniously fitted in, though not found in situ, and a large rift on one side had been 

 still more cleverly repaired with wooden patches caulked with moss. No metal had 

 been used in any part of it. The boat was found embedded in the blue and brown 

 clay which underlies the peat, and is considered on geological evidence, which is 

 given with great detail, to be from 2600 to 30CK) years old. It was offered by 

 Mr. Cary Elwes to the British Museum, but was declined as being too large ; it is, 

 however, now suitably housed at Brigg. 



Many similar oaken boats of smaller dimensions have been discovered in various 

 parts of England, and I saw one myself which had been just dug out of a peat bed 

 close to Shapwick Station, in Somersetshire, in September 1906, which was 20 feet 

 long by 2 feet 10 inches wide. 



At Brigg an ancient causeway was discovered, which is described by Mr. 

 Claye in the same pamphlet, and a photograph given. This roadway was found 

 in a brickyard lying between the two branches of the river, under a deposit of blue 

 alluvial clay, and above the forest bed which lies on the top of the glacial drift, and 

 was probably made by the early Britons to secure a safe passage across the valley 

 when it was little more than a swamp. Small trees and branches of yew were laid 

 lengthwise, and across them rough planks of oak, which were fixed in their place by 

 long wooden pins driven through holes at each end. From the photograph the 

 wood appears to have been well preserved, but having been covered up again 

 shortly after the excavation was made, I can give no further details of its condition. 

 In the same place was discovered a sort of raft or flat -bottomed boat, 40 feet 

 long and 6 feet wide, which was also covered up again. From the illustration 

 given, this seems to have been made of five logs placed side by side, and held 

 together by cross ties passing through holes in projections on the upper side of 

 the logs. 



In the foundations of Winchester Cathedral, oak piles had been used to form a 

 solid foundation in the wet peaty soil on which part of the structure rested. When 

 the Cathedral was under restoration in 1906, samples of these piles sent me 

 by Mr. Jackson, the architect of the work, who said that they were put down 

 in the time of William Rufus, were in places decayed. Some logs of beech laid 

 horizontally under the same building, which Mr. Jackson attributes to Bishop de 

 Lucy, about a.d. 1206, remained comparatively sound, and, though the wood has 

 changed from its natural colour to a grey, is fit to use as boards for book- 

 binding. 



With regard to the foundations of the Campanile at Venice, it has been stated 

 that they were laid on larch piles, which are still used in that city for the same 

 purpose; but when I was at Venice in 1905 I inquired into this, and was given 

 a section of an oak pile only about 6 inches in diameter, but perfectly sound and 

 very hard, which was cut from one of the piles taken from the foundation of the 

 Campanile after it fell. (H. J. E.) 



