SECT -III. 
Foflil-trees. 
220 NATURAL HISTORY 
to wonder why more vines are not planted in Cornwall, fo much 
nearer as we are to the fouthern fun than any other part of England ; 
but being more foutherly in fituation is not the only thing requifite 
to vineyards ; our Autumn, which is the time for gathering grapes, 
is generally wet; then, our fummers are never hot, (it being hotter 
in the moil: northern inland counties of England than with us) con- 
fequently they cannot ripen the juice to that flavour and fpirit 
which making of good wines indifpenfably requires ; I much doubt 
therefore whether vineyards in Cornwall will ever anfwer. Hop- 
gardens have been much improved of late years, and in many parts 
of the county fupply the inhabitants with a fufliciency for their malt- 
liquors ; but the major part of what is ufed, is imported from 
London. 
From trees above ground, let us defcend to the fubterraneous 
vegetables called Foflil-trees. In the year 1 740, Chriftopher Haw- 
kins, Efq; of Trewinard, draining a marfliy piece of ground on 
the banks of the river Heyl in Penwith, found feveral pieces of 
oak, buried four feet deep or more under the furface, in a fait clay; 
one large flock of a tree about ten feet long, had no branches, its 
top part pointed to the downhill, the colour of it very black. The 
timber was hard and firm, and indeed timber never decays as long 
as the oil, one of the chief ingredients in the compofition of plants, 
is kept in its proper place; perpetual moifture effectually performs 
this ; but let the warm air exhale this oil, and the ligneous parts 
fhall imbibe and evaporate their moifture, extending alternately, and 
then contracting and fhrivelling the tubular veflels : a feparation 
then (in which all deftruCtion confifts) enfues, and the parts difu- 
nite, which were before glewed together by an inimitable mixture 
of oil, earth, and water. Land-floods feem to have loofened and 
overthrown thefe trees, and the adventitious foil, wafhed down from 
the neighbouring hills and tin-works by the river Heyl, (which has 
contributed to choak the harbour below) gradually interred thefe 
trees deeper after they were fallen. In fuch fituations, that there 
fhould be foflil-trees is not to be wondered at, and I believe there 
are few fuch without them ; but we muft look out for other caufes, 
where the circumftances of the ground, and the properties of the 
trees difcovered, manifeftly differ. In the year 1750, John Roberts, 
of the parifh of Senan, digging for tin near Velindreath, found, at 
the depth of thirty feet, an entire fkeleton, about the bignefs of 
that of a large deer, but fuch a fet of bones as he had never be- 
fore obferved : The beaft lay on its fide, and near it, in a line 
parallel to its vertebras, a proftrate tree of twenty feet long, about 
the diameter of a moderate man’s wafte ; great numbers of leaves 
were 
