7 



OF FOREST-TREES. 305 



IS. That all these, especially the Fir and Pine, will prosper well with cH. xxn. 

 us is more than probable ; because it is a kind of demonstration, that they 

 did heretofore grow plentifully in Cumberland, Cheshire, Staffordshire, 

 and Lancashire, if the multitudes of these trees to this day found entire, 

 and buried under the earth, though supposed to have been overtlirown, 

 and covered so ever since the universal deluge, he indeed of this species. 

 Dr. Plot speaks of a Fir-tree in Staffordshire of one hundred and fifty 

 feet high, which some think of spontaneous growth, besides several more 

 so irregularly standing, as shews them to be natives. But to put this at 

 last out of controversy, see the extract of Mr. de la Prim's letter to the 

 Royal Society, l^ansactions, No. 277, and the old map of Croul, 

 and of the yet, or lately remaining, Firs growing about Hatfield in the 

 commons, flourishing from the shrubs and stubs of those trees, to which 

 I refer the reader. As for buried trees of this sort, the late Dr. Merrett, 

 in his Pinax, mentions several places of this nation where subterraneous 

 trees are found ; as, namely, in Cornwall, ad jinem terr<e, in agris Flints ; 

 and in Pembrokeshire, towards the shore, where they so abound, ut totum 

 littus (says the Doctor) tajiquam silva cwdua apparet; they are also found 

 in Cheshire, Cumberland, and Anglesey, and in several of our Euro- 

 boreal tracts, where they are called Noah's Ark. By Chatnesse, in Lan- 

 cashire, says Camden, the low mossy ground was no very long time since 

 carried away by an impetuous flood, and in that place now lies a low 

 irriguous vale, where many prostrate trees have been dug out. And from 

 another I receive, that in the moors of Somersetshire, towards Bridge- 

 water, some lengths of pasture growing much withered, and parched more 

 than other places of the same ground, in a great drought, it was observed 

 to bear the length and shape, in gross, of trees they dug, and found in 

 the spot Oaks as black as Ebony, and have been from hence instructed 

 to take up many hundreds of the same kind. In a fenny tract of the 

 Isle of Axholme, lying part in Lincolnshire, and part in Yorkshire^ have 



suhtehra- 

 nean trees. 



" of prodigious size, and most irregularly wreathed, seemed to bend under their weight 

 " of timber : one of them had reached the ground, taken root, and for many years drew 

 " nourishment from the new stock, which also reared an additional tree : but either 

 " through the increasing strength and elasticity of the parent branch, or loosened by some 

 " violent agitation of the great stiem of the tree, the large new roots have been torn from 

 " the soil, and now hang suspended a great way from the ground, with other branches 

 " darting from them." 



Volume I. Z z 



