385 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 170/. 



some 9O; this seemed surprising, considering that the town was surrounded 

 with a large morass, overflowed in winter, and that you could not come into 

 the parish any way upon arable land. At my entrance there, I found neither 

 gentleman nor beggar, nor any kind of dissenter from the church ; there had 

 been no law suit among them in the memory of man, nor was any commenced 

 during my incumbency as rector there, for above 30 years together. The 

 morasses or moors are of great extent, and the parish being surrounded by 

 them, the village was thence called Kinnardsey or Kinnardus his island; ei, ea, 

 ey, being all watery terminations; thus the. next parish is called Eyton, the 

 town upon the waters, Edney, or Edwyney, Edwin's island; there is also 

 Buttery, or Butterey, the island of butter, being a long grazing tract of land, 

 with some others of the like termination. All that vast morass was called the 

 weald moor, or the wild moor, that is, the woody moor: thus the wood lands 

 of Kent are called the weald of Kent; the wolds of Yorkshire most probably 

 have been woody formerly, and called the wealds, for the word weald or wold 

 is by our Saxon antiquaries rendered woody; and I have been assured by aged 

 people, that all the wild moors were formerly so far overgrown by rubbish 

 wood, such as alders, willows, salleys, thorns, and the like, that the inhabit- 

 ants commonly hung bells about the necks of their cows, that they might the 

 more easily find them. These moors seem to be nothing else but a composition 

 of such sludge and refuse, as the floods left on the surface of the ground, when 

 they drained away, and yet this sediment is full 3 or 4 feet thick; for I have 

 often observed, that the black soil cast up by moles, or dug out of ditches, was 

 a mere composition of roots, leaves, fibres, spray of wood, such as the water 

 had brought and left behind it; in digging they often find roots and stumps of 

 oaks 3 or 4 feet under the surface, and they are very common in the bottom 

 of the ditches and drains: the soil is peaty, and cut up for fuel in some part of 

 the lordship ; in the bottom of these peat pits, are found clay, sand, and other 

 sorts of soil. These grounds have formerly been much higher, for I have 

 observed oaks and other trees, where the present soil is so much shrunk and 

 settled from them, that they stand as on high stilts, being supported on the 

 great fibres of the roots, so that sheep may easily creep under them. 



That large tract, formerly called vasta regalis, is now by draining become 

 good pasturage, and yields great quantities of hay, though much of it is of such 

 a nature, as to dry up a new milch cow, starve a horse, and yet feed an ox 

 surprisingly; I suppose proceeding from its dry and binding quality that makes 

 the oxen drink much. 



About half a mile from the parish church, is a pretty farm, called the Wall, 

 which I judge was formerly a British fortification : it is encompassed with a 



