72 



shire, eighteen feet deep. This was about 300 

 before ; so the bog had grown about a foot in eleven 

 years, that is, somewhat above an inch in a year, 

 although some seem to grow much faster. ' 



Micl) more ancient is the Great Level, or fenny 

 ad, VMiich Ci'iitains about 300,000 acres, lying in 

 t.< en- les of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, the Isle of 

 E \, IliUii $ ; 4oii, Northampton, and Lincoln. This was 

 otice Hi in iar.d. There have been found therein stones, 

 bnrks, a* \ other nraterials for building. In setting 

 dov.i. a sluice, there was found, sixteen feet deep, a 

 smith*-; forge, a,<.d all the tools thereunto belonging. 

 \Villiaivi of Malmsbury, who lived 1200 years ago, says 

 that in his time, " The trees which grew there, smooth 

 and straight, were so tall that they seemed to touch the 

 stars. A plain there is as even as the sea, which, with 

 the green grass, allures the eye ; and there is not the 

 least parcel of ground that lies-waste and 1 void. Here 

 you see plantations of fruit-trees; there a field set with 

 vines, part creeping on the -ground, part mounting on 

 liigh poles." But how came it to be reduced to so very 

 different a state? It beems the ocean broke in upon it, 

 with such resistless violence, that the buildings through- 

 out the whole space were overturned, and the trees torn 

 up by the roots. The amazing quantity of silt thrown 

 up at the samje time, covered the whole country, even 

 to the verge of the Highlands, seven, eight, or even 4en 

 feet deep. Hence a few years since, in digging a pool, 

 there* was found at the upper skirts of the level the 

 skeleton of a large nVn, near twenty fret long, lodged 

 in silt above six reet below the surface of the ground. 

 Yet how or when this inundation was. we are not able to 

 determine. Whenever it was, it was probably occa- 

 sioned by a violent earthquake. 



A late writer gives the following account of the 

 natural origin of bogs in Ireland. Some of these have 

 vast quantities of timber under them, others have very 

 little. But the surface of all is covered with a short, 

 thick, and matted kind of heath. This, as it grows and 

 thickens at the top, vegetates at the bottom into a close 



