OF FOREST-TREES. 



309 



only here, but in other places where such trees are found in the like cir- CH. XXII. 

 curnstances, it has been the work and effects of vast armies of the Ro- '-"•v^**^ 

 mans, when finding they could not with all their force subdue the bar- 

 barous inhabitants, by reason of their continual issuing out of those 

 intricate fortresses and impediments, they caused whole forests to be cut 

 down by their legions and soldiers, who were never suffered to remain 

 idle during their winter-quarters, but were continually exercised in such 

 public and useful works as required a multitude of hands ; by which 

 discipline they became hardy, active, and less at leisure to mutiny, or 

 corrupt one another. I do not affirm that this answers all submerged 

 trees, but of very many imputed to other causes. 



But we shall inquire farther concerning these subterranean productions 

 anon, and whether the earth, as well as the water, have not the virtue of 

 strange transmutations. These trees are found in moors, by poking with 

 staves of three or four feet long, shod with iron. 



13. In Scotland, as we noted, there is a most beautiful sort of Fir, or 

 Pine rather, bearing small sharp cones, (some think it the Spanish Pinaster) 

 growing upon the mountains ; of which, from the late Marquis of Argyll^ 



Fir kind ; and that Caesar says expressly, that no Firs grew in Britain in his time : but this 

 is easily answered by observing, that these, though of the Fir kind, yet are not the species 

 usually called the i^«V, but Pitch-tree ; and Caesar has no where said that Pitch-trees did 

 not grow in England, Norway and Sweden yet abound with these trees; and there are 

 at this time whole forests of them in many parts of Scotland, and a large number of them 

 wild upon a hill at Wareton in Staffordshire to this day. In Hatfield-marsh, where such 

 vast numbers of the fossil-trees are now found, there has evidently once been a whole forest 

 of them growing. The last of these was found alive and growing in that place within 

 seventy years last past, and cut down for some common use. It is also objected by some to 

 the system of the Firs growing where they are found fossile, that these countries are all bogs 

 and moors, whereas these sorts of trees grow only in mountainous places. But this is 

 founded on an error ; for though in Norway and Sweden, and some other cold countries, 

 the Fir kinds all grow upon barren and dry rocky mountains, yet in warmer places they 

 are found to thrive as well on wet plains. Such are found plentifully in Pomerania, Li- 

 vonia, and Courland, &c. ; and in the west parts of New England there are vast numbers 

 of fine stately trees of them in low grounds. The whole truth seems to be, that these 

 trees love a sandy soil ; and such as is found at the bottoms of all the mosses where these 

 trees are found fossile. The roots of the Fir-kind are always found fixed in these ; and 

 those of oaks, where they are found fossile in this manner, are usually found fixed in clay ; 



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