forest in mounts bay. 
81 
trunk appeared, and the whole coiiise of 
the roots eighteen feet long and twelve wide, 
was displayed in a horizontal position ; upon 
spading round we found the sand to be a 
thin layer only of ten inches deep, and then 
the natural earth appeared in which the 
roots remained so firmly fixed, that with 
a pick and crow of iron, we could not get 
off one piece, but were content to saw off 
what we could come at. The trunk at the 
fracture was ragged and by the level range 
of the roots which lay round it was part of 
the body of the tree just above its division 
into roots. Of what kind it was there did 
not enough remain above the roots positively 
to determine. The roots were pierced 
plentifully by the teredo or auger worm. 
Thirty feet to the west we found the remains 
of another tree; the ramifications extended 
ten feet by six ; there was no stock in the 
middle; it was therefore part of the under 
or bottom roots of the tree, pierced also by 
the teredo, and of the same texture as the 
first. Fifty feet to the north of the first 
tree we found part of a large oak; it was 
the body of a tree three feet in diameter; 
