65 
which, when wrought and polished fine, is not much inferior to 
ebony. The tryers, who search in the soft and boggy ground for 
iron, do affirm, that at three or four yards depth, they find stumps 
of trees broken off ; some of which are two, or three, or four feet 
from the ground, and exactly the same wood with the subterraneous 
trees. — That these trees are natives of this place, and not brought 
here by a foreign deluge, I presume, he says, is almost demonstrable ; 
though now there are neither firs nor pines growing naturally here, 
nor have been in the memory of any man ; neither does there remain 
the tradition of any such. The place, where these trees are found, is 
a long flat, on the one side bounded by the raging river Humber, 
which often breaks its banks. Nigh this place, the Dun empties itself 
into the river Humber. It is about twelve miles below York*.” 
The observations of Mr. De la Pryme, on the subterranean trees 
of Hatfield Chasef , are exceedingly interesting : he relates, that 
Hatfield Chase contains within its limits 180,000 acres of land, of 
which about 90,000 were annually overflowed, until they were 
drained, and regained, for the purposes of agriculture, by the inge- 
nuity and perseverance of Sir Cornelius Vermuiden, a Dutchman. 
In the whole, or most of this tract, even in the bottom of the river 
of Ouse ; in the bottom of the adventitious soil of all Marshland ; 
and round about by the skirts of the Lincolnshire woulds, unto 
Gainsburg, Bautry, Doncaster, Bain, Snaith, and Holden, are found, 
he says, infinite millions of the roots and bodies of trees of all big- 
nesses, great and little, and of most of the sorts that this island either 
formerly did, or that it at present does, produce, as pitch trees, com- 
monly called firs, oaks, birch, beech, yew, wirethorn, willow, ash, 
&c. the roots of all, or, of most of which, stand in the soil in their 
natural postures, as thick as ever they could grow, most of them 
laying by their proper roots. Most of the great trees lay all their 
* Philos. Transact, vol. xix. No. 28. f Philos. Transact, vol. xxii. p- 980. 
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VOL. I. 
