16 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern counties." 

 But he was mistaken : for I myself have seen cottages on 

 the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a 

 black, hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners 

 assured me they procured from the bogs by probing the 

 soil with spits, or some such instruments : but the peat is 

 so much cut out, and the moors have been so well examined, 

 that none has been found of late.* Besides the oak, I 

 have also been shown pieces of fossil wood of a paler colour 

 and softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir: but, 

 upon a nice examination, and trial by fire, I could discover 

 nothing resinous in them ; and therefore rather suppose 

 that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such 

 aquatic tree. 



* Old people have assured me, that on a winter's morning they 

 have discovered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay 

 longer over the space where they are concealed than in the surround- 

 ing morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent 

 with true philosophy. Dr. Hales saith, "That the warmth of the 

 earth, at some depth under ground, has an influence in promoting a 

 thaw, as well as the change of the weather from a freezing to a 

 thawing state, is manifest from this observation — viz., Nov. 29th, 1731, 

 a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next 

 morning, mostly melted away on the surface of the earth, except in 

 several places in Bushy Park, where there were drains dug and 

 covered with earth, on which the snow continued to lie, whether 

 those drains were full of water or dry ; as also where elm-pipes lay 

 under ground : a plain proof this, that those drains intercepted the 

 warmth of the earth from ascending from greater depths below them ; 

 for the snow lay where the drain had more than four I'eet depth of 

 earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and the 

 tops of walls." — See Hale's Ilcemastatics, p. 360. Query, Might 

 not such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the 

 discovery of old obliterated drains and wells about houses ; and in 

 Roman stations and camps lead to the finding of pavements, baths 

 and graves, and other hidden relics of curious antic[uity ? 



