221 
OF CORNWALL. 
were on the branches, home large, home fmall, and the impreffion 
of the leaves was plain in the earth. The tree was of the oak kind, 
and fo foft in home parts, that the fhovel (luck in it, but extreamly 
hard at the knots and fpurs : not far from the fkeleton, but un- 
connected, lay part of a deer’s horn two feet and a half long, 
thicker than a man’s arm-wrift, with the branched antlers to it ; one 
of the knobs v/as as big as a man’s fift, but, as foon as this part- of 
the horn was touched, it crumbled to dull: ; one tooth which I have 
was taken from the fkeleton, with feveral other pieces of deer’s or 
elk’s horn, found, in the fame place, in the year 1753, twenty 
feet under the furface. The Jlratum in which they lay was the 
fame fhelly fand as that of the fea-ftrand adjacent for nine feet, then a 
fandy earth intermixed with fmall Hones, which the tinners call 
Cothan, (wherein the fand-tin is ufually found) about a foot and a 
half above the karn. The qu eft ion here will naturally occur, how 
this tree and the fkeleton became interred together. There is no fign 
of a tree any where near this place, nor any record of fuch creatures as 
the elk or moofe-deer ( to which thefe horns are moft ufually af- 
cribed * ) having been ever in this country ; befides, although the 
horns of fuch creatures are fometimes found, “ the bones of them 
are a rarity yet, by their lying in a parallel line, they muft have 
fallen together, and the fame violence likely that overwhelmed the 
beaft muft have alfo proftrated the tree. This muft: therefore either 
have happened at the univerfal deluge, when the fame waters which 
'had unfooted the tree, and drowned the creature, retiring, drew 
them both towards the ocean, or by fome hidden fubftdence of the 
fhelving part of the hill, when the land finking hurried away both 
the creature and the tree in one direction : to one of thefe caufes 
the reader will probably afcribe this unufual phenomenon. The firft 
may feem moft likely, becaufe the tree and the creature are found 
depofited at that depth where tin-ftones, rounded and dilperfed by 
the flood, are ufually lodged ; and yet, that there was anciently a 
hidden fubftdence of the ground in thefe parts, has been a conftant 
tradition for fome ages. 
A third fort of fofiil-trees is fometimes difcovered in lakes, bogs, 
and harbours, in whole groves together, and fome trees among the 
reft Handing as perpendicular as they grew. This is a phenome- 
non moft likely owing to the fubftdence of the ground,* it being no 
unufual accident ( fometimes perhaps by the undermining of the 
fea, as Mr. Ray imagines x , but oftener in earthquakes) for the 
ground to fink, and a lake of water (where there was dry and planted 
land ) to fpring up and fill the cavity. On the ftrand of Mount’s 
* Though I think it uncertain whether thefe fangs as the horns of the elk always have, 
horns belonged to the elk or the common flag of * Theological Difcourfes, page 229. 
°ur own country, they having no broad plated 
L 1 1 
Bay, 
