118 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ' [aNNO 1 696. 



2. Fens. The east begins about Wainfieet, and ends at Sibsye, yielding 

 great plenty and variety of fowl and fish, particularly duck, mallard, and teal» 

 which are usually taken in decoys and sent to London. About Midsummer, at 

 moulting time, several persons go in small boats among the reeds, and knock 

 them down with long poles, being llicn unable to swim or fly. A little before 

 Michaelmas, great flights arrive in these parts, which soon grow fat ; when the 

 decoys are frozen, the fowl resort to the sea for their food. As for fish there 

 are great quantities, especially pike, some being of a very large size ; the water 

 is deep in some places, 8, Q, or 10 feet. Through these fens run great cuts or 

 drains, which abound in fish ; there are also vast numbers of geese, which live 

 on the grass, but taste both rank and muddy ; but when fed with corn are as 

 good as others. But they make an amends iti the vast quantities of feathers 

 and quills they yield; the owners pluck them 4, 5, nay some 6 times a-year for 

 their feathers, and thrice for their quills. Some persons have 1000, and some 

 more : they are kept at little or no charge, except in deep snowy weather, when 

 they feed them with corn. Between Spalding and Crowland grow large crops 

 of oats, and also large quantities of rapum sylvestre, called cole-seed, of which 

 they make oil, by breaking it between two large black marble stones of near a 

 ton weight, in oil mills; some go with sails, and serve also to drain the fens, 

 and are called engines, and discharge great quantities of water. After pressing 

 out the oil, the remainder is called cakes, with which they heat ovens, and 

 burn for fuel : they are exported to Holland, where the cows are fed with them. 

 3. Pasture grounds, lying between the sea and the fens, feeding a great 

 number of iat oxen and sheep, which are weekly sent to London in droves. 



Near the feus stands Boston, remarkable for the church, steeple, and river. 

 The church is very lofty, and ceiled with Irish oak, neatly wrought ; the body 

 is 100 feet wide ; the steeple is a tower of 285 feet high, octangular towards 

 the top ; of curious carved stone work, standing not above 12 yards from the 

 river Witham : it is only 32 feet wide, and 40 in length ; at each angle is a large 

 buttress. 



Our marshes doubtless have been gained from the sea, there being near them, 

 at Wainfieet, such banks and salt-hills as Camden mentions at Sutterton. 

 They are fenced chiefly by large dykes, filled with fresh water in the winter, and 

 salt in the summer. The sea loses and gains considerably in this county ; for, 

 about Ilolbcach, Sutton, and Wainfieet, great marshes have lately been taken 

 in ; but northward of Ingold-Meals, it has lost much more. I have seen the 

 roots of trees that have been dugout of the sands at low water, near a mile 

 from the shore, which I take to belong to fir, the bark smelling aromatic, and 

 somewhat like that of fir-timber in pil'CS that have been long in salt water, but 



