26 The Natural History of Selborne 



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 ; and therefore rather suppose 

 that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic 

 tree. 1 



* See his " History of Staffordshire." t Old people have assured me, that 

 on a winter's morning they have discovered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar 

 frost, which lay longer over the space where they were concealed than in the sur- 

 rounding 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 

 underground, 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 melted 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 underground : 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 "Hasma- 

 statics," 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? 



1 Many errors still occur even among " educated " people from a misconcep- 

 tion of the meaning of the word forest. In early times, it did not necessarily or 

 even usually imply the presence of trees. A forest is not a wooded district but one 

 reserved for hunting and sport what we now call a moor or heath. Wolmer 

 Forest was never wooded at ancient dates, though a small part of it has lately been 



