ore than other places of the same ground, in a
great drowth, it was observ'd to bear the length and shape (in gross) of
trees; they digg'd, and found in the spot oaks, as black as ebony, and
have been from hence instructed, to take up many hundreds of the same
kind: In a fenny tract of the Isles of Axholme, (lying part in
Lincolnshire, and part in Yorkshire) have been found oaks five yards in
compass, and fifteen in length, some of them erect, and standing as they
grew; in firm earth below the moors, with abundance of fir, which lie
more stooping than the oak; some being 36 yards long, besides the tops:
And so great is the store of these subterraneans, as the inhabitants
have for divers years carried away above 2000 cart-loads yearly: See
Dugdal's _History of Draining_. This might be of good use for the like
detections in Essex, Lincolnshire, and places either low situate, or
adjacent to the sea; also at Binfield Heath in Kent, &c. These trees
were (some think) carried away in times past, by some accident of
inundation, or by waters undermining the ground, till their own weight,
and the winds bow'd them down, and overwhelm'd them in the mud: For 'tis
observ'd, that these trees are no where found so frequently, as in boggy
places; but that the burning of these trees so very bright, should be an
argument they were fir, is not necessary, since the bituminous quality
of such earth, may have imparted it to them; and Camden denies them to
be fir-trees; suggesting the query; whether there may not possibly grow
trees even under the ground, as well as other things? Theophrastus
indeed, l. iv. c. 8. speaks of whole woods; bays and olives, bearing
fruit; and that of some oaks bearing acorns, and those even under the
sea; which was so full of plants and other trees, as ('tis said)
Alexander's forces sailing to the Indies, were much hindred by them.
There are in Cumberland, on the sea-shore, trees sometimes discover'd at
low-water, and at other times that lie buried in the sand; and in other
mossie places of that county, 'tis reported, the people frequently dig
up the bodies of vast trees without boughs, and that by direction of the
dew alone in Summer; for they observe it never lies upon that part under
which those trees are interr'd. These particulars I find noted by the
ingenious author of the _Britannia Baconica_. How vast a forest, and
what goodly trees were once standing in Holland, and those
Low-countries, till about the year 8