M DESCRIPTION OF THE STRATA. 



remaiB here and there, particularly in low and hollow places. The 

 rapid growth of trees and plants in the new formed soil, would con- 

 tribute to the increase of that soil, and serve to retain the moisture 

 Avith which it was saturated. 



Thus we may account for the phenomena presented by these 

 submerged forests, without having recourse to the operation of earth- 

 quakes, or any preternatural elevations or depressions, either of the 

 ocean, or of the land. The accumulation of an alluvial soil of sixteen 

 or twenty feet in thickness, over these vegetable remains, is no diffi- 

 culty in the way, especially as there may have been successive ol> 

 structions and inundations, and consequently a greater number of de- 

 positions. We have good evidence of the rapid growth of soil in 

 low grouiids, particularly on banks of rivers. The Roman pavements 

 discovered in our times are almost all at a considerable depth below 

 the present surface ; and in tracing the remains of our Roman roads', 

 however distinctly we may see them on the high grounds, we are 

 almost sure to lose them in the hollows, where they are deeply cov- 

 ered by the soil. That the land on the banks of the Humber was 

 increased at some periods, as it was diminished at others, appears 

 from the records kept by the monks of Melsa; who state, that after 

 the frequent and violent inundations of the Humber had destroyed 

 no small quantity of land at their grange of Ald-Saltagh, and forced 

 them to remove their grange into the interior, the land near the Hum- 

 ber began to grow again.* 



Perhaps it may be alleged, that the low situation in whicU these 

 peat bogs are found, militates against the opinions now advanced, 

 and favours the idea of a subsidence of the land, or an elevation of 

 the sea; most of the bogs, where they are laid open on the shore, 



* Dugdale's Monasticon, I. p. 795, 796. The renovation of some part of their lost terri- 

 tory is thus mentioned : " Contra quem locum, licet Humbria ibidem terram propius consumpsisset, 

 terra jam recrescere ccepit." 



