68 
The Rev. W. Borlase confirms the account of great numbers ot 
subterranean trees being found on the shore at Mount’s Bay, Corn- 
wall. These trees were very large, and appeared to be oaks, hazel, 
and willow trees : they were found three hundred yards below full 
sea mark ; .and when the tide is in, have at least twelve feet of water 
above them. This, he thinks, confirms the tradition, already noticed, 
that St. Michael’s Momit, now half a mile inclosed with the sea, when 
the tide is in, stood formerly in a wood*. 
Sir John Hill states, that he often met with pieces of wood, very 
little altered from their original state, in strata of loam among gravel ; 
and even in solid beds of stone, particularly at the great quarry, 
at Mr. Allen’s, near Bath, in which he saw part of an elm, of more 
than four feet in length, which was still soft enough to be easily 
pierced with a knifef . 
When the mind is engaged in the consideration of a subject, so 
interesting as that to which I am endeavouring to attract your at- 
tention, it is highly gratifying to find, that necessary investigations 
have been made by men, whose learning and abilities have engaged 
our respect. The following observations, independent of the im- 
portance they derive from their authors, are in themselves so highly 
interesting, that no apology can be necessary for laying them before 
you, almost unaltered in their form. 
In September, 1^96, the Right Honourable the President of the 
Royal Society, accompanied by Dr. Joseph Correa de Serra, went to 
Sutton, in Lincolnshire, to examine the nature and extent of certain 
islets of moor, chiefly composed of decayed trees, situated along that 
coast, and visible only in the lowest ebbs of the year. 
These islets, according to the most accurate information, extend 
at least twelve miles in length, and about a mile in breadth, opposite 
to Sutton Shore; and consist almost entirely of roots, trunks, 
branches, and leaves of trees and shrubs, intermixed with some 
* Philos. Transact, vol. i. part 1. -f Natural History of Fossils, p. 638. 
