THE EARTH. 



retiring from the same coasts, and leaving 

 that habitable once more, which it had for- 

 merly destroyed. All this is wonderful; and, 

 perhups, instead of attempting to inquire after 

 the cause, which has hitherto been inscru- 

 table, it will best become us to rest satisfied 

 with admiration. 



At the city of Modena in Italy, and about 

 four miles round it, wherever it is dug, when 

 the workmen arrive at the depth of sixty-three 

 feet, they come to a bed of chalk, which they 

 bore with an augre five feet deep : they then 

 withdraw from the pit, before the augre is 

 removed, and upon its extraction, the water 

 bursts up through the aperture with great 

 violence, and quickly fills this new-made well, 

 which continues full, and is affected neither 

 by rains nor droughts. But that which is 

 most remarkable in this operation, is the 

 layers of earth as we descend. At the depth 

 of fourteen feet, are found the ruins of an 

 ancient city, paved streetf, houses, floors, and 

 different pieces of Mosaic. Under this is 

 found a solid earth, that would induce one to 

 think had never been removed ; however, 

 under it is found a soft oozy earth, made up 

 of vegetables ; and at twenty-six feet depth, 

 large trees entire, such as walnut-trees, with 

 the walnuts still sticking on the stem, and 

 their leaves and branches in exact preserva- 

 tion. At twenty-eight feet deep, a soft chalk 

 is found, mixed with a vast quantity of shells; 

 and this bed is eleven feet thick. Under this, 

 vegetables are found again, with leaves and 

 branches of trees as before ; and thus alter- 

 nately chalk and vegetable earth to the depth 

 of sixty-three feet. These are the layers 

 wherever theworkmen attempt to bore; while 

 in many of them, they also find pieces of 

 charcoal, bones, and bits of iron. From this 

 description, therefore, it appears, that this 

 country has been alternately overflowed and 

 deserted by the sea, one age after another : 

 nor were these overflowings and retirings of 

 trifling depth, or of short continuance. When 

 the sea burst in, it must have been a long 

 time in overwhelming the branches of the 

 fallen forest with its sediments ; and still 

 longer in forming a regular bed of shells ele- 

 ven feet over them. It must have, therefore, 

 taken an age, at least, to make any one of 

 these layers; and we may conclude, that it 



must have been many ages employed in the 

 production of them all. The land, also, upon 

 being deserted, must have had time to grow 

 compact, to gather fresh fertility, arid to bo 

 drained of its waters before it could be dis- 

 posed to vegetation ; or before its trees could 

 have shot forth again to maturity. 



We have instances nearer home of thr 

 same kind, given us in the Philosophical 

 Transactions ; one of them by Mr. Derham. 

 An inundation of the sea at Dagenham, in 

 Essex, laying bare a part of the adjacent 

 pasture, for above two hundred feet wide, 

 and, in some places, twenty deep, it discover- 

 ed a number of trees that had lain there for 

 many ages before; these trees, by laying 

 long under ground, were become black and 

 hard, and their fibres so tough, that one might 

 as easily break a wire, as any of them : they 

 lay so thick in the place where they were 

 found, that in many parts he could step from 

 one to another : he conceived, also, that not 

 only all the adjacent marshes, for several 

 hundred acres, were covered underneath 

 with such timber, but also the marshes along 

 the mouth of the Thames, for several miles, 

 The meeting with these trees, at such depths, 

 he ascribes to the sediment of the river, and 

 the tides, which constantly washing over 

 them, have always left some part of their sub- 

 stance behind, so as, by repeated alluvions, 

 to work a bed of vegetable earth over them, 

 to the height at which he found it. 



The levels of Hatfield-Chace, in Yorkshire, 

 a tract of above eighteen thousand acres, 

 which was yearly overflown, was reduced to 

 arable and pasture land, by one Sir Cornelius 

 Vermusden, a Dutchman. At the bottom of 

 this wide extent, are found millions of the 

 roots and bodies of trees, of such as this isltyid 

 either formerly did, or does at present pro- 

 duce. The roots of all stand in their proper 

 postures ; and by them, as thick as ever they 

 could grow, the respective trunks of each, 

 some above thirty' yards long. The oaks, 

 some of which have been sold for fifteen 

 pounds apiece, are as black as ebony, very 

 lasting, and close grained. The ash-trees 

 are as soft as earth, and are commonly cut 

 in pieces by the workmen's spades, and as 

 soon as flung up into the open air, turn to 

 dust. But all the rest, even the willows 



