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1 16 A DISCOURSE
Booill. out Boughs, and that by Direction of the Dew alone in Summer ;‘forthey observe it never lies upon that Part under which those Trees areinterred. These Particulars I find noted by the ingenious Author ofthe Britannia Baconica. How vast a Fores, and what goodly Treeswere once standing in Holland, and those Low-countries , till about theYear 860, that an Hurricane obstructing the Mouth of the Rhine nearCatwic , made that horrid Devastation good Authors mention ; andthey do this Day find monstrous Bodies and Branches (nay, with thevery Nuts, most intire) of prostrate and buried Trees, in the Veene,especially towards the South , and at the Bottom of the Waters : Alsonear Brumes in Flanders , whole Woods have been found twenty Ellsdeep, in which the Trunks, Boughs and Leaves do so exactly appear,as to distinguish their several Species, with the Series of their Leavesyearly falling ; of which fee Boetius de Boot.
Dr. Blot, in his Nat. Hijl. of Oxford and Stafford-Jhires mentionsdivers subterraneous Oaks , black as Ebony, and of mineral Substancefor Hardness ( See Cap. iii. Oak ) quite through the whole Substanceof the Timber, caused (as he supposes, and learnedly evinces) a vi-triolic Humour of the Earth, of Affinity to the Nature of the Ink-galls , which that kind of Tree produces: Of these he speaks of somefound funk under the Ground, in an upright and growing Posture, tothe perpendicular Depth of sixty Foot ; of which one was three FootDiameter, of an Hardness emulating the politest Ebony : But theseTrees had none of them their Roots, but were found plainly to havebeen cut off by the Kerf There were great Store of Hafel-nuts,whose Shells were as found as ever, but no Kernel within. It is therethe inquisitive Author gives you his Conjecture, how these deep Inter-ments happen’d; namely, by our Ancejtors (many Ages since) clear-ing the Ground for Tillage, and when Wood was not worth convertingto other Uses, digging Trenches by the Sides of many Trees, in whichthey buried some ; and others they flung into Quagmires and Lakes,to make Room for more profitable Agriculture : But I refer you to theChapter . In the mean time, concerning this mojfie Wood ( as they
usually term it, because, for the most Part, dug up in mojjie and moo-ry Bogs where they cut for Turf) it is highly probable (with the Learn-ed Mr. Ray ) that these Places were many Ages since, Part of firmLand covered with Wood, afterwards undermined and overwhelmed bythe Violence of the Sea, and so continuing siibmerg’d, till the Riversbrought down Earth and Mud enough to cover the Trees, filling upthe Shallows, and restoring them to the Terra-firma again, which heillustrates from the like Accident upon the Coast of Suffolk, aboutDunwich, where the Sea does at this Day, and hath for many Tearspast, much incroach’d upon the Land, undermining and subverting byDegrees, a great deal of high Ground; so as by antient Writings it ap-pears, a whole Wood of more than a Mile and half, at present is so farwithin the Sea. Now if in succeeding Ages (as probable it is enough)the JV# shall by Degrees be filled up, either by its own working, or byEarth brought down by Land-floods , still subsiding to the Bottom,and surmounting the Tops of these Trees, and so the Space again added5 .®' Land the Men that shall then live in those Parts, will, it’slikely, dig up these Trees, and as much wonder how they came there,as we do at present those we have been speaking of.
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