236 SYLVA BOOK ii 



others they slung into quagmires, and lakes to make 

 room for more profitable agriculture : But I refer 

 you to the chapter. In the mean time, concerning 

 this mossie-wood (as they usually term it, because, 

 for the most part, dug-up in mossie and moory-bogs 

 where they cut for turff) it is highly probable (with 

 the learned Mr. Ray) that these places were many 

 ages since, part of firm-land covered with wood, 

 afterwards undermined, and overwhelmed by the 

 violence of the sea, and so continuing submerg'd, till 

 the rivers brought down earth, and mud enough to 

 cover the trees, filling up the shallows, and restoring 

 them to the terra-jirma again, which he illustrates 

 from the like accident upon the coast of Suffolk, 

 about Dunwich, where the sea does at this day, and 

 hath for many years past, much incroach'd upon the 

 land, undermining, and subverting by degrees, a 

 great deal of high-ground ; so as by ancient writings 

 it appears, a whole wood of more than a mile and 

 half, at present is so far within the sea : Now if in 

 succeeding ages (as probable it is enough) the sea 

 shall by degrees be fill'd up, either by its own work- 

 ing, or by earth brought down by land-floods, still 

 subsiding to the bottom, and surmounting the tops 

 of these trees, and so the space again added to the 

 firm-land ; the men that shall then live in those parts, 

 will, it's likely, dig-up these trees, and as much 

 wonder how they came there, as we do at present those 

 we have been speaking of. 



In the mean time, to put an end to the various 

 conjectures, concerning the causes of so many trees 

 being found submerg'd, for the most part attributed 

 to the destruction made by the Noatick inundation ; 

 after all has been said of what was found in the level 



