S4 VEGETABLB SUBSTANCES. 



Sir Cornelius Vermuideh, a Dutchman, he at lenerth 

 effectually dischased, drained, and reduced it to con- 

 stant arable and pasture groiuids, with immense 

 labour, and at the expense of above 400,000/. In 

 the soil of all or most of these 180,000 acres of land, 

 of which 90,000 were drained, even in the bottom of 

 the river Ouse, and in the bottom of the adventitious 

 soil of all Marshland, and round about bv the skirts 

 of the Lincolnshire Wolds, unto Gainsbury, Bawtry, 

 Doncaster, Bain, Snaith, and Holden, are found 

 vast multitudes of the roots and trunks of trees, of 

 all sizes, a^reat and small, and of most of the sorts 

 which this island either formerly did, or at present 

 does, produce ; as fir, oak, birch, beech, yew, 

 thorn, willow, ash, &c., the roots of all or most of 

 which stand in the soil in their natural position, as 

 thick as ever they could g;row, as the trunks of most 

 of them lie by their proper roots. Most of the lara:e 

 trees lie alona; about a yard from their roots, (to 

 which they evidently belong^ed, both by their situation 

 and the sameness of the wood,) with their tops com- 

 monly north-east, thoui^h, indeed, the smaller trees 

 lie almost every war, across the former, some over, 

 and others under them ; a third part of all beinc^ pitch 

 trees, or firs, some of which are thirty yards in 

 length or upwards, and sold for masts and keels of 

 ships. Oaks have been found, of twenty, thirty, and 

 thirtv-five vards long;, yet wanting many vards at 

 the small end ; they are as black as ebony, and very 

 durable in any ser\ice they are put to. It is vay 

 observable, and manifestly evident, that many of 

 those trees of all sorts have been burnt, but espe- 

 cially the pitch or fir trees, some quite through, and 

 some all on a side ; some have been found chopped 

 and squared, some bored, others half split, with large 

 wooden wedges and stones in them, and broken axe- 

 heads, somewhat like sacrificing axes in shape; and all 



