like the sacrificing axes. And all these were in such 

 places, and at such depths as could not have been 

 opened, from the time the forest was destroyed witil the 

 ground was drained. Near a great root in the parish of 

 Hatfield, were found eight or nine Roman coins : and 

 at the bottom of a new drain, were found trees squared 

 and cut ; rails, bars, a kind of battle axe, and two or 

 three coins of the Emperor Vespasian. Nay, the ground 

 at the bottom of the river was found to jiefia ridge 

 and furrow, manifesting that it had been ploughed. In 

 an old drain, an oak w r as found forty yards long, four 

 yards in diameter at the great end, three yards and a 

 foot in the middle, two yards at the small end ; so that 

 by a moderate computation it seems to have been as 

 long again. Yea, about fifty years ago there was found, 

 several feet deep, a man lying at his full length, with 

 his head upon his arms, as asleep. His skin, tanned as 

 it were by the moor-water, preserved his shape entire ; 

 but his flesh and most of his bones were consumed. 



These stately trees formerly composed one of the 

 most beautiful forests in the world. But how came it 

 to be destroyed ? When the Romans pursued the 

 Britons, they always fled into the woods. On this the 

 Roman generals ordered them to be cut down ; this 

 vast forest in particular. The trees falling cross the 

 rivers which ran through the country, soon dammed 

 them up, turned the ground into a lake, and gave rise 

 to the moors that increased continually, by earthy 

 matter washed down, the consumption of rotting 

 branches and leaves, and the growth of water-moss, 

 which wonderfully flourishes on rotten grounds. 

 Hence it is that so many Roman coins have been found 

 at the bottom of these levels; that so many trees are 

 found burnt or chopped ; and that the soil of the 

 country in general is two, three, or more yards higher 

 than formerly. 



Some similar alterarion seems to have happened 

 many centuries ago to that whole tract of land near Nevv- 

 bury, in Oxfordshire, out of which they dig their peat, 



VOL. III. 



