Sylva; Or, A Discourse of Forest Trees. Vol. 1 (of 2)

fir, nor indeed care to be topped: But the fir may be propagated of layers, and cuttings, which I divulge as a considerable secret that has been essay’d with success.

12. That all these, especially the fir and pine will prosper well with us, is more than probable, because it is a kind of demonstration, that they did heretofore grow plentifully in Cumberland, Cheshire, Stafford, and Lancashire, if the multitudes of these trees to this day found entire, and buried under the earth, though suppos’d to have been o’rethrown and cover’d so ever since the universal Deluge, be indeed of this species: Dr. Plot speaks of a fir-tree in Staffordshire, of 150 foot high, which some think of spontaneous growth; besides several more so irregularly standing, as shews them to be natives: But to put this at last out of controversie, see the extract of Mr. de la Prim’s letter to the Royal Society, Transact. n. 277, and the old map of Crout, and of the yet (or lately) remaining firs, growing about Hatfield in the commons, flourishing from the shrubs and stubs of those trees, to which I refer the reader. As for buried trees of this sort, the late Dr. Merrett, in his Pinax, mentions several places of this nation, where subterraneous-trees are found; as namely, in Cornwal, ad finem terræ, in agris Flints; in Penbroke-shire towards the shore, where they so abound, ut totum littus (says the Doctor) tanquam silva cædua apparet; in Cheshire also (as we said) Cumberland and Anglesey, and several of our Euro-boreal tracts, and are called Noah’s-ark. By Chatnesse in Lancashire (says Camden) the low mossie ground was no very long time since, carried away by an impetuous flood, and in that place now lies a low irriguous vale, where many prostrate trees have been digged out: And from another I receive, that in the moors of Somersetshire (towards Bridgwater) some lengths of pasture growing much withered, and parched more 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 860, that an hurricane obstructing the mouth of the Rhine near Catwic, made that horrid devastation, good authors mention; and they do this day find monstrous bodies and branches, (nay with the very nuts, most intire) of prostrate and buried trees, in the Veene, especially towards the south, and at the bottom of the waters: Also near Bruges in Flanders, whole woods have been found twenty ells deep, in which the trunks, boughs, and leaves do so exactly appear, as to distinguish their several species, with the series of their leaves yearly falling; of which see Boetius de Boot.