on the east Coast of England. 149 
above its mouth, there is a subterraneous stratum of decayed 
trees and shrubs, exactly like those we observed at Sutton; 
particularly at Axholme isle, a tract of ten miles in length, by 
five in breadth; and at Hatfield chase, which comprehends one 
hundred and eighty thousand acres. Dugdale* had long ago 
made this observation, in the first of these places ; and De la 
Pryme -f in the second. The roots are there likewise standing 
in the places where they grew ; the trunks lie prostrate. The 
woods are of the same species as at Sutton. Roots of aquatic 
plants and reeds are likewise mixed with them ; and they are 
covered by a stratum of some yards of soil, the thickness of 
which, though not ascertained with exactness by the above- 
mentioned observers, we may easily conceive to correspond with 
that which covers the stratum of decayed wood at Sutton, by the 
circumstance of the roots being (according to Mr. Richard- 
son’s observations only visible when the water is low, where 
a channel was cut, which has left them uncovered. 
Little doubt can be entertained of the moory islets of Sutton 
being a part of this extensive subterraneous stratum, which, by 
some inroad of the sea, has been there stripped of its covering 
of soil. The identity of the levels ; that of the species of trees ; 
the roots of these affixed, in both, to the soil where they grew ; 
and, above all, the flattened shape of the trunks, branches, and 
roots, found in the islets, (which can only be accounted for by 
the heavy pressure of a superinduced stratum,) are sufficient 
reasons for this opinion. 
Such a wide spread assemblage of vegetable ruins, lying 
• History of Embanking and Draining. Chap, xxvii. 
f Philos. Trans. Vol. XXII. p. 980. 
% Philos. Trans. Vol. XIX. p. 528. 
