Page:A Treatise on Geology, volume 2.djvu/81

 CHAP. VI. worn and blown away, are discovered many roots of large firs, with the marks of the axe as fresh upon them as if they had been cut down only a few weeks." (Hutton's Abridgment, vol. xxii.)

Hazle nuts, and acorns, and fir cones, in great abundance, lie heaped together at the bottom of the soil; and "at the bottom of a new river or drain (almost 100 yards wide and 4 or 5 miles long), were found old trees squared and cut, rails, stoops (gateposts), bars, old links of chains, horse-heads, an old axe somewhat like a battle-axe, and two or three coins of Vespasian. But what is more remarkable, is that the very ground at the bottom of the river was found in some places to lie in ridges and furrows, thereby showing that it had been ploughed and tilled in former days." (Ibid.)

Mr. De la Pryme was informed by Mr. E. Canby, that he had found an oak tree which was 4 yards across at the base, 3½ yards in the middle, and 2 yards across the top; and the length of this fragment (the top was gone) was 40 yards. The same person found a fir tree 36 yards long, and estimated it to be deficient 15 yards = 51 yards or 153 feet. (The highest fir tree which has fallen under our observation in England, is a spruce fir near Fountain's Abbey, stated to be 1 1 8 feet above the grass.)

The roots of the fir trees have been observed to be in the sand, and those of the oak trees in clay.

"About 50 years ago," says Mr. De la Pryme, "at the very bottom of a turf pit, there was found a man, lying at his length, with his head upon his arm, as in a common posture of sleep, whose skin being tanned, as it were, by the moor water, preserved his shape entire; but within, his flesh and most of his bones were consumed."

Another case of this nature was brought under the examination of the author of this volume, by Mr. W. Casson, of Thorn, who forwarded to the Yorkshire Museum (1831), the head of a fallow deer, found in the peat near that place, in a singular condition. The bones and teeth were, in fact, changed to leather; the