distinguishable, and although the timber was generally decomposed and soft, yet the barks and roots appeared as fresh as those of living trees, 'even' says he 'the thin silver membrane of outer skin was discernible.' The soil in which these fossil trees were found was soft clay; but a strata of leaves, some inches in thickness lay above them. *

Our author next proceeds to trace the epoch of the vegetable destruction, and by what agency it was effected. He first treats of the primitive order of fossil vegetables, which we commonly ascribe as belonging to the antidiluvian period of the world. With this order he thinks the remains on the Lincolnshire coast have no connexion; but with the second order, which comprehends those found in clay or sand, and which are supposed to have been deposited there by the force of powerful currents; as the American river, Mississippi does in the present day; † though the remains at Sutton,

* In the large tracts of low land which lie on the S. bank of the river Humber, near its mouth, there is a subterraneous stratum of decayed trees and shrubs, exactly like those at Sutton, particularly in Axholm isle and at Hatfield chase. Sir William Dugdale remarks, that the oaks of the former place were found lying in multitudes, some being of the extraordinary size of five yards in compass and sixteen long, with quantities of small nuts and acorns near them. They appeared to have been burnt asunder, and not felled by the

axe.

It seems almost satire to connect in one sentence, this most beautiful of rivers with the black, sluggish, contemptible streams of the marshes. After watering three thousand miles of a country, unequalled in lovliness, and embracing every variety of scenery, this splendid stream descends into the ocean, with a roar and impetuosty

he is of opinion, grew on the spot where they were found; which, as it is below the level of the sea, and must in such a situation have been covered by its waters, he supposes the force that destroyed them, lowered the ground on which they stood; and instancing an earthquake as the most probable cause of the sudden sinking of the ground, he comes in conclusion to the following determination, that the original catrastrophe which lowered this forest was of very ancient date; but that the inroad of the sea which uncovered the decayed trees of the islands of Sutton was comparatively recent.'

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befitting its mighty dignity. At one time it is beheld flowing through deserts of unbroken silence, and forests of awful gloom; at another bursting from the bowels of lofty mountains, foaming down the eternal cataract, enriching the painted bosom of the valley, or straying through wild and savage glens, where only the Indian war-whoop and the howl of the wolf have been heard since the first morn of time. Often on the summer serenity of its waters are seen floating islands of flowers, on which the gorgeous tropical birds, voyage and repose in delicious security; while trees of every lustros variety line its banks, and spread incense over its waves. But it is when swelled

by the winter torrent, after the storms have torn up whole forests and scattered them on its waters, that the lordly river becomes the most beautiful and sublime; weeds twine round and connect the floating logs, and shrubs implant themselves on the green slime of the timber, and thus floating bowers sweep on the still eddy of the stream, and are rolled along the headlong torrents, until they approach the sea; where the fury of the current separates them in every direction, and they are thus lodged on the shore, or driven wildly into the interminable ocean. In this way Dr. Serra supposes the trees on the Sutton coast were deposited, but it is comparing a Pygmy to a Giant.

How impotent would all the pomps and insolencies of Society be to a home amid such stupendous scenes!

Many other curious phenomena, evidently showing that the Fens were suddenly and completely inundated during many years, have also been made public. We shall select the principal of these and then resume our History.

Dugdale mentions a causeway, supposed to have been made by the direction of the Roman Emperor Severus, extending from Denver to Peterborough, a length of 24 miles. This was composed of gravel, being 60 feet broad and 3 feet deep. * When discovered however it was covered with moor from 3 to 5 feet in thickness.

On the erecting a sluice near Magdalen Bridge, during the reign of Elizabeth, furze bushes, and nut-trees with their fruit on them were discovered seventeen feet beneath the surface of the soil in a perfectly preserved state. This rests on the authority of Sir Wm. Dugdale, who also observes that such bushes are now unknown in Marshland.

Ellstob relates that in driving the piles of the sluice at the mouth of the new cut, near Boston, in 1764, roots of trees were found at eighteen feet depth, which were in such a state of preservation that many were obliged to be 'chopt through' before the piles could be driven. Small sea shells were also discovered at the same time and place.

* This appears to have been the usual manner of making roads by the Romans. Gibbon, in his second preliminary Chapter to the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, says 'The middle part of the road was raised into a terrace, which commanded the adjacent country, consisted of several strata, of sand, gravel, and cement, and was paved with large stones.' Vol. 1. p. 82.

Sir Robert Cotton de Bruce, the Antiquary, while making a pool near Connington Downs, Hunts., found, at the depth of six feet, the petrified skeleton of a large sea-fish, nearly twenty feet in length.

Sir Wm. Dugdale relates that in digging a moat at Whittlesea, the laborers came to a perfect soil eight feet below the surface of the land with swaths of grass on it, lying as they were first mowed. *

In digging the foundation of Skirbeck sluice, near Boston, a Smith's forge was discovered with all the tools belonging to it, embedded in silth sixteen feet deep. A cart wheel has also been found at a similar depth near Magdalen fall. Near the river Welland several boats have been found at the depth of ten feet, and also contiguous to the same place, the remains of ancient tan-vats or pits, a quantity of horns, and shoe soles with the toes pointed and turned up, were discovered. †

In 1636 on deepening Wisbech river, seven boats were found eight feet below the former bottom, in a stony soil. Spears, shields, and military weapons have been taken from the rivers of the Middle Level of the Fens, and in 1829, on deepening the river at Ely, a very antique sword was found, in a high state of preser

* Were such a question worth investigation, this circumstance would tend materially to fix the period of the inundation, which must have happened in summer or early autumn, and have been unforseen by the inhabitants. The time is also corroborated by the nuts and acorns ante-mentioned.

↑ Stowe and Baker mention such as being worn in the time of Richard II., (1382).

vation. Human bodies have also in many parts been disinterred, 'the remains perhaps,' says Mr. Wells, 'of unfortunate persons, lost in attempting to cross the Fens in their undrained state."

The general conclusion to be deduced from all these evidences seems to be that the Fens in some hidden age were suddenly and entirely inundated, during a long but indefinite period. The means and the cause of such a flood are alike unknown; nor can we arrive at much more than vain supposition in all our attempts at truth. While one author contends that the sea broke its boundaries, and resistlessly overflowed the whole Fen,* another and more general opinion seems to be that the deluge was occasioned by a great land flood, which from meeting with obstructions at its natural outfall, overspread and drowned the country in every part, while some, have very improbably we think, considered an earthquake as the cause of such a devastation. The only supposition most allied to certainty we can arrive at is, that the surface of the Fens are now some feet higher than they were originally, and that this must have been brought about by some uncommon operation of nature.

Neither history nor tradition have intimated the time. when this waste was secured by the agency of art. The ancient Britons have been represented to posterity as a

* We lately chanced to pick up a clod of clay, which had been recently dug from a drain, and, on breaking it, found within, several fossil sea-shells of curious form. We do not mention this as an argument that the sea anciently flowed here, as these may be antidiluvian remains; but certainly it is no wild chimera to assert, that an ocean has, at some foreign period of time, overflowed this portion of England.

E