642 
" That round about by the skirts of the Lincolnshire wolds 
unto Gainsburgh, Bawtry, Doncaster, Bain, Snaith, and 
Holden, are found infinite millions of the roots and bodies 
of trees, great and little, of most part of the sorts that this 
island either formerly did, or at present does produce, as 
firs, oaks, birch, beech, yew, winthorn, willow, ash, &c, the 
roots of all, or most of which stand in the soil in their natural 
postures, as thick as ever they could grow, as the bodies of 
most of them lie by their proper roots. Most of the great 
trees by all their length about a yard from their great roots 
(unto which they did most evidently belong, both by their 
situation and the sameness of the wood,) with their tops 
most commonly north-east, though the smaller trees lie 
almost every way cross those, some above, some under, a 
third part of all of which are firs, some of which have 
been found of thirty yards length and above, and have 
been sold to make masts and keels for ships. Oaks have 
been found twenty, thirty, and thirty-five yards long, yet 
wanting many yards at the small end." But perhaps the 
monarch of all these submerged trees was an oak, also 
alluded to by De la Pryme, which was fourteen yards in 
diameter, and forty yards long. This was calculated to 
have been not less than seventy yards high, and to have 
contained 1,080 feet of timber.* 
From observations made in sinking a well in the Trent 
valley it was found that a stone causeway existed on a 
shingly gravel foundation, twenty-seven feet below the pre- 
sent level, above which were fragments of Roman pottery, &c, 
* During the past year (1858) an oak has been extracted from Conington 
Fen, Hunts, sixty feet long to the collar, whence sprang two large limbs, each of 
which alone would have formed tolerably large sized trees, the diameter of the 
trunk was four feet. The level of Conington Fen has sunk five feet in conse- 
quence of its drainage, from which cause the above-mentioned tree was revealed. 
There the oaks alone are broken off from their roots, which remain embedded in 
the clayey subsoil, the elms, firs, and yews, having been uprooted when they fell 
and lie prostrate in all directions. 
