20 WOLMER FOREST. 



consists entirely of sand, covered with heath and fern ; but 

 is somewhat diversified with hills and dales, without having 

 one standing tree in the whole extent. In the bottoms, 

 where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which formerly 

 abounded with subterraneous trees ; though Dr. Plot says 

 positively,* " that there never were any fallen trees hidden in 

 the mosses of the southern counties." But he was mistaken ; 

 for I myself have seen cottages on the verge of this wild 

 district, whose timbers consisted of a black hard wood, 

 looking like oak, which the owners assured me they procured 

 from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or some such 

 instruments ; but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors 

 have been so well examined, that none has been found of 

 late.f Besides the oak, I have also been shown pieces of 

 fossil-wood, of a paler colour, and softer nature, which the 

 inhabitants called fir; but, upon a nice examination, and 

 trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous in them: 



* See his Hist, of Staffordshire. 



*) Old people have assured me, that, on a winter's morning, they have dis- 

 covered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay longer over the 

 space -where they were concealed, than on the surrounding morass. Nor does 

 this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with true philosophy. 

 Dr. Hales saith, " That the warmth of the earth, at some depth under ground, 

 has an influence in promoting a thaw, as well as the change of the weather 

 from a freezing to a thawing state, is manifest, from this observation, viz., 

 Nov. 29, 1731, a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the 

 next morning, mostly molted away on the surface of the earth, except in 

 several places in Bushy Park, where there were drains dug and covered with 

 earth, on which the snow continued to lie, whether those drains were full of 

 water or dry ; as also where elm-pipes lay under ground : a plain proof this, 

 that those drains intercepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from 

 greater depths below them ; for the snow lay where the drain had more than 

 four feet depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and 

 the tops of walls." See Hales's Hcemastatics, p. 360. Quere, Might not 

 such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the discovery of 

 old obliterated drains and wells about houses ; and, in Roman stations and 

 camps, lead to the finding of pavements, baths, and graves, and other hidden 

 relics of curious antiquity ? 



I have now in my possession a snuff-box, formerly the property of Sir 

 Walter Scott, on which is the following inscription : " Oak found near Gordon 

 Castle, twenty feet below the surface of the ground." From the great age 

 of the wood, it has the appearance of having nearly turned to a substance 

 resembling agate. In a bog in Staffordshire, with which 1 am well acquainted, 

 huge oak trees, at a considerable depth, might be found, from the snow having 

 melted away on the surface. ED. 



