m 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
Tacitus/ and Strabo^ tliat Britian was not now in the state in 
whieli the Romans had found it; its towns were no longer barri- 
caded forests_, nor its houses wood cabins covered with straw/^ 
On the resignation of the sovereignty of the island by the 
Romans in the year 4.27, also during the divisions and dissen- 
sions of the Heptarchy, and more particularly afier the incursions 
of the Danes, the drams and embankments were neglected; 
consequently the ^^Great LeveP^ was again subjected to inunda- 
tions from the waters of the high grounds, and in great part be- 
came once more an almost impassable morass. The rivers burst- 
ing their barriers or overflowing their banks, would subject the 
lands to repeated inundations, layer upon layer of silt would be 
deposited (a natural warping) and during the time of the nearly 
unresisted action of these causes (a period of about 1200 years) 
would be formed the upper bed of moor, and the ten to sixteen 
or eighteen feet of silty clay reposing upon it, as seen upon ex- 
a^nination of the strata at Boston, Spalding, and in Marshland, 
and divers other places. During the same period also, the 
monarchs of the forests, and the stately trees, which for four 
centuries had flourished in a genial soil, were doomed to be laid 
prostrate ; their stability having been greatly lessened by the 
sodden state of the ground, they could not out-live the turmoil 
of the elements ; but here this desolation had reached its worst, 
fpr it was slow in progress, and numerous changes on the surface 
ever and anon modified the features of the Level. 
For several centuries after the Romans had left our isle, 
nothing respecting the state of these fens, appears to have been 
recorded ; agriculture undoubtedly retrograded ; the tilhng of 
tlie soil was limited to small districts immediately surrounding 
religious houses, and the labour performed by those devout com- 
munities. Dugdale, referring to this period, \mtes — Whereof 
the most antient mention that I have met, is about King Edward 
the Confessor's reign (1042-66) ; Egelrie, who had been a monk 
at Peterborough (but at tliat time Bishop of Durham), then 
