its water. He attributes this change of situation to the force of re- 

 sidence ; but as the effect here produced, appears to be too great to 

 have been affected by the natural consequence of gravity, slowly, 

 though perpetually, operating, he rather attributes it to the force of 

 subsidence, suddenly acting by means of some earthquake. The 

 stratum of soil, sixteen feet thick, placed above the decayed trees, 

 seems to remove the epoch of their sinking and destruction, far be- 

 yond the reach of any historical knowledge. 



From the exact resemblance, between maritime Flanders and the 

 opposite coast of England, in point of elevation; as well as in the 

 structure and arrangement of the soils, he infers, that the countries 

 are certainly coeval : and concludes, that whatever proves that ma- 

 ritime Flanders has been for many ages out of the sea, must also 

 prove that the forest, here spoken of, must have been, long before 

 that time destroyed, and buried under a stratum of soil. But al- 

 though he supposes the original catastrophe, which buried this fo- 

 rest, to be of very ancient date, he suspects the inroad of the sea, 

 which uncovered the decayed trees of the islands of Sutton, to be 

 comparatively recent: and to have been produced by some of the 

 stormy inundations of the North Sea, which, in these last centuries, 

 have washed away such large tracts of land on its shores ; taking 

 away a soil resting on clay, and thereby uncovering a part of this 

 subterranean forest*. 



In the gravel pits, near the tile kiln in Hackney road, belonging 

 to Mr, William Rhodes, parts of trees have been found, buried at 

 various depths. I have repeatedly found mineralized wood in this 

 spot, in the dark blue clay, which is dug for the purpose of tile 

 making, and at the depth of twenty-one feet. 



Wishing to impress on your mind the existence of subterranean 

 and mineralized woods in almost every known part of this globe, I 



* Philosophical Transactions for 1799. 

 VOL. I. L 



