65 



which, when wrought and polished fine, is not much inferior to 

 ebony. The tryers, who search in the soft and boggy ground for 

 iron, do affirm, that at three or four yards depth, they find stumps 

 of trees broken off ; some of which are two, or three, or four feet 

 from the ground, and exactly the same wood with the subterraneous 

 trees. That these trees are natives of this place, and not brought 

 here by a foreign deluge, I presume, he says, is almost demonstra- 

 ble ; though now there are neither firs nor pines growing naturally 

 here, nor have been in the memory of any man ; neither does there 

 remain the tradition of any such. The place, where these trees are 

 found is a long flat, on the one side bounded by the raging river 

 Humber, which often breaks its banks. Nigh this place, the Dun 

 empties itself into the river Humber. It is about twelve miles 

 below York *." 



The observations of Mr. De la Pryme, on the subterranean trees 

 of Hatfield Chase f, are exceedingly interesting: he relates, that 

 Hatfield Chase contains within its limits 180,000 acres of land, of 

 which about 90,000 were annually overflowed, until they were 

 drained, and regained, for the purposes of agriculture, by the inge- 

 nuity and perseverance of Sir Cornelius Vermuiden, a Dutchman. 

 In the whole, or most of this tract, even in the bottom of the river 

 of Ouse ; in the bottom of the adventitious soil of all Marshland ; 

 and round about by the skirts of the Lincolnshire woulds, unto 

 Gainsburg, Bautry, Doncaster, Bain, Snaith, and Holden, are found, 

 he says, infinite millions of the roots and bodies of trees of all big- 

 nesses, great and little, and of most of the sorts that this island 

 either formerly did, or that it at present does, produce, as pitch 

 trees, commonly called firs, oaks, birch, beech, yew, wirethorn, 

 willow, ash, &c. the roots of all, or, of most of which, stand in the 

 soil in their natural postures, as thick as ever they could grow, 

 most of them laying by their proper roots. Mostofthe great 

 * Philos. Transact, vol. xix. No. 28. t Phil. Trans, vol. xxii. p. 980. 



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