18 NATURAL HISTORY 



royalty consists entirely of sand covered with heath and 

 fern ; but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales, with- 

 out having one standing tree in the whole extent. 1 In the 

 bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which 

 formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though Dr. 

 Plot says positively, 2 that there never were any 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. 3 Besides the oak, I have also been 



1 At the present time nearly 1,500 acres are enclosed and planted, 

 chiefly with oak, larch, and Scotch fir ; and the large size to which many 

 of the firs have attained, proves how well adapted the soil is for that 

 kind of timber. Outside the enclosures seedling firs are springing up 

 rapidly ; and year by year as the wind scatters the seeds, the area of 

 the woodland increases, so that in time were the trees not felled or 

 burned, they would extend over the whole of the district comprised in 

 the "forest." 



During the hot summer of 1864, a terrible conflagration occurred, 

 and was supposed to have been the work of incendiaries. 540 acres in 

 Longmoor, and 170 in Brimstone Wood were destroyed before the fire 

 burnt itself out. The amount of game destroyed, as may be supposed, 

 was commensurate with the destruction of its haunts. ED. 



2 See his History of Staffordshire. Gr. W. 



3 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 were concealed than on 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. 29, 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 lav where the 



