THE rtNE. 



457 



results of his rcsoarclies were communicated to 

 tlie Royal Society, in a paper published in their 

 Transactions for 1 701 . 



Tlie fomous levels of Hatfield Chase were the 

 largest chase of red deer that king Charles the 

 First had in England, containing in all above 

 180,000 acres of land, about half of which was 

 yearly drowned by vast quantities of water. This 

 being sold to one Sir Cornelius Vermuiden, a 

 Dutchman, he at length effectually disehased, 

 drained, and reduced it to constant arable and 

 ))asture gTOunds, with immense labour, and at 

 the expense of above £"400,000. In the soil of 

 all or most of these 1 80,000 acres of land, of 

 ■which 90,000 were drained, even in the bottom 

 of the river Ouse, and in the bottom of the adven- 

 titious soil of all marshland, and round about by 

 the skirts of the Lincolnshire Wolds, unto Gains- 

 bury, Bawtiy, Doncaster, Bain, Snaith, and 

 llolden, are found vast multitudes of the roots 

 and trunks of trees, of all sizes, great and small, 

 and of most of the sorts which this island either 

 formerly did, or at pi-esent does, produce ; as fir, 

 oak, birch, beech, yew, thorn, willow, ash, &c., 

 the roots of all or most of which stand in the 

 soil in their natural position, as thick as ever 

 they could grow, as the trunks of most of them 

 lie by their proper roots. Most of the large trees 

 lie along about a yard from their roots (to which 

 tliey evidently belonged, both by their situation 

 and the sameness of the wood), with their tops 

 commonly north-east, though, indeed, the smaller 

 trees lie almost every way, across the former, 

 some over, and others under them ; a third part 

 of all being pitch trees, or firs, some of which are 

 thirty yards in length or upwards, and sold for 

 masts and keels of ships. Oaks have been found 

 of twenty, thirty, and thirty-five yards long, yet 

 wanting many yards at the small end ; they are 

 as black as ebony, and very durable iu any ser- 

 vice they are put to. It is very observable, and 

 manifestly evident, that many of tliose trees of 

 all sorts have been burnt, but especially the pitch 

 or fir trees, some quite through, and some all on 

 a side ; some have been found chopped and 

 squared, some bored, others half split, with large 

 wooden wedges and stones in them, and broken 

 axe heads, somewhat like sacrificing axes in 

 shape; and all this in such places and at such 

 depths that they could never have been opened 

 since the destruction of this forest till the time 

 of the drainage. Near a large root, in the parish 

 of Hatfield, were found eight or nine coins of 

 some of the Roman emperors, but exceedingly 

 consumed and defaced with time ; and it is very 

 observable, that on the confines of this low coun- 

 try, between Burningham and Brumby in Lin- 

 colnshire, are several great hills of loose sand, 

 under which, as they are yearly worn and blown 

 away, are discovered many roots of large firs, 

 with the marks of the axe as fresh ujjon them 



as if they had been cut down only a few weeks. 

 Hazel-nuts and acorns have frequently been 

 found at the bottom of the soil of those levels 

 and moors, and whole bushes of fir tree apples, 

 or cones, in large quantities together. 



The author of this paper then goes on to show 

 that the Romans destroyed this immense forest, 

 partly by cutting down the trees, and partly by 

 burning them; and that these fallen trees dammed 

 up the rivers, which, forming a lake, gave origin 

 to the large turf moors of that part of the coun- 

 try. The Romans themselves mention cutting 

 down the British forests, as well for the purpose 

 of making roads through the country, as to drive 

 the natives out of their fastnesses. 



In the peat-bogs of the bleakest districts of 

 Scotland, the remains of pine trees are very abun- 

 dant; and such is their durability, in consequence 

 of the quantity of turpentine they contain, that, 

 where the birch is reduced to a pulp, and the 

 oak cracks into splinters, as it dries, the heart of 

 the pine remains fresh, and, embalmed in its 

 own turpentine, is quite clastic, and used by the 

 country people in place of candles. In England, 

 too, subterraneous beds of pines have been found ; 

 and though, in consequence of the greater warmth 

 of the climate, these contain less turpentine, and 

 are more decayed, the remains of the cones, or 

 seed-vessels, show that they belong to the same 

 species. 



The Wild or Scotch Pine (pinus sihcstris), 

 commonly, though erroneously, called the Scotch 

 fir, is a very widely diffused 

 tree. There can be no doubt 

 but that it is indigenous to 

 Scotland. It is found growing 

 in a state of nature in many 

 situations; and the native 

 forests of Invercauld and 

 Rothiemurchus exhibit the 

 finest specimens of this tree in 

 Britain. It is also indigenous 

 in the Alps, in the north of 

 Germany, in Sweden and Nor- 

 way, and in Russia. The pine 

 in favourable situations attains 

 the lieight of eighty feet, and from four to five 

 feet in diameter. The trunk is covered with a 

 thick and deeply furrowed bark ; the leaves are 

 in pairs, of a pale green colour, stiff, twisted, and 

 about three inches long; the flowers are of a 

 yellowish tint, and the cones are gi-ayish, of a 

 middling thickness, and a little shorter than the 

 leaves. Each scale is surmounted by a retorted 

 spine. The seeds are small, black, and garnished 

 with a reddish wing; they ripen the second year. 

 The timber is called red or yellow deal, and is 

 the most durable and valuable of the whole 

 genus, with the exception of the larch, which is 

 also very durable. 



The limber produced in the cold elevated situ- 

 3 15 



ScotihPiii 



