VOL. XXM.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 623 



It is very observable, and manifestly evident, that many of those 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 through, 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, as could never be opened, since the destruc- 

 tion of this forest, till the time of the drainage. Near a large root in the 

 parish of Hatfield, was found 8 or Q 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 country, between Burningham and Brumby in 

 Lincolnshire, 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 upon them, as if they had but been cut down 

 only a few weeks ; as I have often with pleasure seen. 



Hazel nuts and acorns have frequently been found at the bottom of the soil 

 of those levels and moors, and whole bushels of fir-tree apples, or cones, in 

 large quantities together : and at the very bottom of a new river or drain, 

 (almost 100 yards wide, and 4 or 5 miles long,) were found old trees squared and 

 cut, rails, stoops, bars, old links of chains, horse-heads, an old axe, somewhat 

 like a battle axe, two or three coins of the emperor Vespasian, one of which 

 I have seen in the hands of Mr, Cornelius Lee of Hatfield, with the emperor's 

 head on one side, and a spread eagle on the other : but what is more remark- 

 able is, that the very ground at the bottom of the river was found in some places 

 to lie in ridges and furrows, thereby showing that it had been ploughed and 

 tilled in former days. 



My friend, Mr. Edward Canby of this town, told me that about 50 years 

 ago, under a great tree in this parish was found an old fashioned knife, with a 

 haft of a very hard black sort of wood, which had a cap of copper or brass on 

 the one end, and a hoop of the same metal on the other end, where the blade 

 went into it. He also found an oak tree within his moors, 40 yards long, 4 

 yards diametrically thick at the great end, 3 yards and a foot in the middle, 

 and 2 yards over at the small end; so that by moderate computation, the tree 

 seems to have been as long again. At another time he found a fir-tree, 36 

 yards long, besides its computed length, which might well be 15 yards more. 

 So that there has been exceedingly great trees in these levels; and what is also 

 very strange, about 50 years ago, at the very bottom of a turf-pit, there was 

 found a man lying at his length, with his head upon his arm, as in a common 

 posture of sleep, whose skin being tanned as it were by the moor-water, pre- 



VOL. IV. 4 L 



