NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 21 



In the bottom, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, 

 which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though 

 Dr. Plot says positively, 1 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. 2 Besides the 

 oak, I have also been shown pieces of fossil wood of 

 a paler colour, and softer nature, which the inhabitants 

 call fir : but, upon a nice examination, and trial by fire, 

 I could discover nothing resinous in them ; and there- 

 fore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or 

 alder, or some such aquatic tree. 



This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many 



the work of incendiaries; 540 acres in Longmoor and 170 in Brimstone Wood 

 were destroyed before the fire burnt itself out. The amount of game destroyed, 

 as may be supposed, was commensurate with the destruction of its haunts." 

 (Harting's ed., p. 18, note.) [R. B. S.] 



1 See his " History of Staffordshire." [G. W.] 



2 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 are concealed, than on the surrounding 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 depths under ground, 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 under ground : 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 Hamastatics, 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? [G. W.] (See also Letter LXI to Daines Barrington. 



