In the earth are found trees of almost every kind, as willows, oaks, firs, aspins, beach, yew, ash, hawthorn, &c. In the fens of Lincoln, along the river Ouse, and in Hatfield-Chace, in the county of York, these trees are as straight as we see them in a forest. The oaks are very hard and used in buildings; they are said to last a long time, but which I must doubt, as all trees that are dug out of the earth, at least all those which I have seen, whether oak or others, lose, in drying, all the solidity, which they appeared to have at first. The ash is tender, and soon crumbles to dust. There are many trees which have clearly been shaped and sawed by men, and the hatchets, sometimes found near them, resemble, in form, the knives anciently used in sacrifices. Besides trees, nuts, acorns, &c. are met with in great quantities, in many other fenny parts of England and Ireland, as well as the morasses of France, Sweden, Savoy, and Italy.[AP] [AP] See Transactions Philosophical Abridg. Vol. IV, page 218, &c. In the city of Modena, and four miles round, whatever part of the earth is dug, to the depth of sixty-three feet, and then bored five more with an auger, the water springs out with such great force, that the well is filled instantly; and this water continues always the same, neither diminishing nor increasing by rain nor draught. What is more remarkable in this ground, when we reach the depth of fourteen feet, we find the ruins of an ancient town, as paved streets, houses, different pieces of mosaic work, &c. After this is a very solid ground, which appears to have never been stirred; yet below it we find a moist earth mixed with vegetables; and at twenty-six feet entire trees, as filberds with nuts thereon, and a great quantity of branches and leaves. At twenty-eight feet is a stratum of chalk mixed with shells, and this bed is eleven feet in thickness; after this we again meet with vegetables; and so on alternatively to the depth of sixty-three, feet, when there is a bed of sand mixed with gravel and shells, like those formed on the coasts of the Italian sea; these successive beds are always met with in the same order, wheresoever it has been dug, and very often the auger meets with large trunks of trees, which the workmen bore through with much labour. Bones of animals, coals, flint, and pieces of iron are also found. Ramazzini, who relates these circumstances, thinks that the gulph of Venice formerly extended beyond Modena, and, that by the sediments of rivers in the course of time, assisted perhaps by the inundations of the sea, this ground has been formed. I shall no longer dwell on the varieties in the formation of modern strata, it suffices to have shewn that they have been produced by no other causes than the running and stagnate waters, which are upon the surface of the earth, and that they are neither so hard nor solid as the ancient strata which are formed under the waters of the sea. ARTICLE XIX.