288 



Farming of Lincolnshire. 



clayey warp is several feet in depth, and underneath it are found 

 the remains of trees lying upon peat moor. Below the moor is a 

 soft blue " pipy" clay, i. e., containing pipes of red rusty matter, 

 probably the decaying roots, &c., of marsh plants. Two or three 

 miles west of this point of the river, before the warping works 

 were commenced, this natural warp was about 18 inches deep, 

 with moor beneath it, containing oak, fir, and yew trees : further 

 inland the peat is at the surface. The peat, v/hen separate from 

 the sand, occupies only a small portion of the low lands of the 

 isle, viz., along the western side and in the neighbourhood of 

 Wroot, &c. It is generally a dark, boggy peat, 3, 4, 5, or more 

 feet in depth ; but in Yorkshire (over the border of this county) 

 it is widely developed, and forms the peat moss of 10^000 acres, 

 called " Thorne Waste," — 10, 12, and even 18 feet in depth, 

 resting upon sand. An overthrown forest appears to have been 

 the origin of this spongy moor ; but as the tide can now flow pro- 

 bably 3, 4, or 5 feet above its surface, the ground upon which 

 the trees grew is 15, 20, or more feet beneath the present level 

 of the sea at hi^h water. The alluvial beds east of the Trent 

 exhibit a similar structure : and the chief part of the subterranean 

 forests grew upon the sand. The deposits are of the same nature, 

 and have a similar order of succession, to those of the fens ; and 

 it may therefore be inferred that the same causes produced both, 

 viz., an elevation of the land and subsequent depression, or else 

 corresponding alterations in the level of the ocean.* It is hoped 

 that the facts (or rather the summary of a profusion of facts) 

 which have now been stated respecting the strata of alluvial 

 deposits in the lowlands of this county, and the great level of the 

 fens, will be of assistance to those writers who base their theories 

 of the origin of the fens upon a few facts recorded by Dugdale 

 and other historians, or else generalise from isolated circumstances 

 observed by themselves. 



The approximate amount of alluvial lands in Lincolnshire may 

 be recapitulated as follows : — 



* De La Pryme (in 1700) says, that " round about by the skirts of the Lincolnshire 

 Woulds unto Gainsburgh, &c., &c., are found infinile millions of the roets and bodies 

 of trees of all bignesses ;" and as the trees are mostly burned down or felled, and 

 Roman remains have been here found, he concludes that the destruction of these forests 

 was a work of that people. However, a change of the relative sea and land levels must 

 have occurred, and before the Ouse and Trent waters pursued their present course ; 

 and in the south-eastern Fens the Roman banks testify that no such alteration has 

 happened since their erection. The Aborigines may have set fire to these woods during 

 a gale (the trees principally lying in one particular direction), and may have chopped 

 down much of the timber. Canoes and other British antiquities have been found here 

 and in the peat and sand east of the river Trent. The various Roman and other re- 

 mains may have sunk into the bog land after the desfniction of the forests. Both 

 Roman and British antiquities, and remains of deer, beavers, wild boars, &c., are also 

 found in the fens; but archaeology must not confute geology, and these fragmentary 

 evidences cannot prove the occurrence of a physical impossibility. 



