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and seemed to be made up only of the shivers, or husks, and other 

 parts of juli of hazel, alder, poplar, c. There is also great quanti- 

 ties of this kind of turf in the northern parts of Yorkshire, and in 

 the bishoprick of Durham. About a mile from Langrow, in Cum- 

 berland, is a stratum of bituminous earth, three feet thick, which 

 contains parts of the trunks of trees, leaves, sprays of shrubs, and 

 other vegetable substances, in such quantity that the far greater 

 part of the stratum seemed to be formed by them. It also abounds 

 near Outhorn in Yorkshire, at Kendall in Westmoreland, in Wind- 

 sor Forest, in the Isle of Wight, and various other places. In that 

 which was dug up in the Isle of Wight, besides the twigs and leaves 

 of hazel, were found several hazel nuts, the shells of which were un- 

 broken, but the kernels were decayed. 



How extensive and considerable the beds of peat may be in the 

 vicinity of the metropolis, may be inferred from the following cir- 

 cumstance: Near a hundred years ago, in digging a wet dock at 

 Deptford, hazel nuts, with hazel, oak, and several other kinds of 

 trees, were found. Within these few years, in digging the wet-docks 

 of Mr. Perry, at Black wall, on the opposite side of the river, and at 

 the distance of nearly two miles, a similar stratum was dug into, 

 yielding peat for a considerable thickness, in which were found 

 hazel nuts, trunks of large trees, &c. In digging also, in the ad- 

 joining marshes, called the Isle of Dogs, lately, for the purpose of 

 forming similar docks, wherever the earth was opened, over an 

 extent of several acres, peat was also found, with hazel nuts, and 

 several trees ; these were chiefly oak, yew and hazel, and a few firs : 

 but the latter, as I am informed, were but of a very small size. At 

 the depth of about six, eight, or nine feet were also found bones of 

 several animals, apparently of horses and oxen, and the fragments 

 of the horns of deer. 



In almost every morass, which has been dug in the isles of An- 



