73 
its water. He attributes this change of situation to the force of re- 
sidence ; but as the effect here produced, appears to be too great to 
have been affected by the natural consequence of gravity, slowly, 
though perpetually, operating, he rather attributes it to the force of 
subsidence, suddenly acting by means of some earthquake. The 
stratum of soil, sixteen feet thick, placed above the decayed trees, 
seems to remove the epoch of their sinking and destruction, far be- 
yond the reach of any historical knowledge. 
From the exact resemblance, between maritime Flanders and the 
opposite coast of England, in point of elevation, as well as in the 
structure and arrangement of the soils, he infers, that the countries 
are certainly coeval : and concludes, that whatever proves that ma- 
ritime Flanders has been for many ages out of the sea, must also 
prove that the forest, here spoken of, must have been, long before 
that time destroyed, and buried under a stratum of soil. But al- 
though he supposes the original catastrophe, ‘ which buried this 
forest, to be of very ancient date, he suspects the inroad of the sea, 
which uncovered the decayed trees of the islands of Sutton, to be 
comparatively recent ; and to have been produced by some of the 
stormy inundations of the North Sea, which, in these last centuries, 
have washed away such large tracts of land on its shores ; taking 
away a soil resting on clay, and thereby uncovering a part of this 
subterranean forest*. 
In the gravel pits, near the tile kiln in Hackney road, belonging 
to Mr. William Rhodes, parts of trees have been found, buried at 
various depths. I have repeatedly found mineralized wood in this 
spot, in the dark blue clay, which is dug for the purpose of tile- 
making, and at the depth of twenty-one feet. 
Wishing to impress on your mind the existence of subterranean 
and mineralized woods in almost every known part of this globe, I 
* 
VOL. I. 
Philosophical Transactions for 1799. 
L 
