J8 NATURAL HISTORY 
royalty consists entirely of sand covered witli heatli and 
fern ; but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales, with- 
out having one standing tree in the whole extent.^ In the 
bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which 
formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though Dr. 
Plot says positively,^ that there never were any fallen trees 
hidden in the mosses of the southern counties. But he was 
mistaken ; for I myself have seen cottages on the verge of 
this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a black hard 
wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured me they 
procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or 
some such instruments ; but the peat is so much cut out, 
and the moors have been so well examined, that none 
has been found of late.^ Besides the oak, I have also been 
^ At the present time nearly 1,500 acres are enclosed and planted, 
chiefij with oak, larch, and Scotch fir ; and the large size to which many 
of the firs have attained, proves how well adapted the soil is for that 
kind of timber. Outside the enclosures seedling firs are springing up 
rapidly ; and year by year as the wind scatters the seeds, the area of 
the woodland increases, so that in time were the trees not felled or 
burned, they would extend over the whole of the district comprised in 
the " forest." 
During the hot summer of 1864, a terrible conflagration occurred, 
and was supposed to have been the work of incendiaries. 540 acres in 
Longmoor, and 170 in Brimstone Wood were destroyed before the fire 
burnt itself out. The amount of game destroyed, as may be supposed, 
was commensurate with the destruction of its haunts. — Ed. 
* See his History of Staffordshire. — G. W. 
3 Old people have assured me that, on a winter's morning, they 
have discovered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay 
longer over the space where they were concealed than on the surround- 
ing morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent 
with true philosophy. Dr. Hales saith, " That the warmth of the 
earth, at some depth under ground, has an influence in promoting a 
thaw, as well as the change of the weather from a freezing to a thawing 
state, is manifest from tliis observation, viz. ISTov. 29, 1731, a little 
snow having fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next morning, 
mostly melted away on the surface of the earth, except in several 
places in Bushy Park, where there were drains dug and covered with 
earth, on which the snow continued to lie, whether those drains were 
full of water or dry ; as also where elm-pipes lay under ground ; a plain 
proof this, that those drains intercepted the warmth of the earth from 
ascending from greater depths below them : for the snow lay where the 
