arrive at the depth of sixty-three feet ; where there is a stratum of 
sand, mixed with gravel and shells, similar to those which appear 
on the coasts of Italy. These successive strata lie always in the 
same order, wherever pits have been dug; and, sometimes, the 
boring instruments fall in with trunks of large trees, which the 
workmen pierce with great labour : they likewise meet with bones 
of animals, pit-coal, flints, and pieces of iron. Rammazini, who 
relates these facts, thinks that the Gulf of Venice formerly extended 
beyond Modena ; and that this land, in the progress of time, has 
been gradually formed by the rivers, assisted, perhaps, by inunda- 
tions of the sea*. 
In the Isle of Anglesey, subterranean trees are frequently dug 
up ; and in the Isle of Man ^is a marsh, called Curragh, six miles 
long, and about three broad, in which subterranean fir trees, in vast 
quantities, are found : and though eighteen or twenty feet below the 
surface, they appear as if standing firm on their roots. 
Subterranean trees are found in various parts of Ireland, par- 
ticularly in the morasses ; but the greatest attention has been 
excited to the wood, actually in a petrified state, which is found in 
the neighbourhood of Lough Neagh. 
Dr. Boate, in his account of Lough Neagh, relates, that on the 
borders of that lough are found little stones, of a pretty moderate 
length ; some of them round in their compass ; others flat, or flattish; 
and some angulous : and which being looked on, as well near, 
as from afar olf, seem to be nothing else but wood ; and by every 
one are taken for such, until one come to touch or handle them : 
for then, by their coldness, hardness, and weight, it appeareth that 
they are not wood, but stone. But with respect to wood, placed in 
the lake, being turned by its water into stone, he says, he had never 
been able to learn the fact, from any persons who had themselves 
VOL. I. 
Buffon’s Natural History, vol i. p. 481. 
I 
