“In the Month of September 1796, (says he) I went to Sutton, on the coast of Lincolnshire, in the company of the right honourable the President of the Royal Society, in order to examine their nature and extent. The 19th of the month being the day after the equinoctial full moon, when the lowest ebbs were to be expected, we went in a boat, about half past twelve at noon, and soon set foot on one of the largest islands then appearing. Its exposed surface was about 30 yards long, and 25 wide when the tide was at the lowest. A great number of smaller islets were visible around us to the eastward and southward; and the fishermen whose authority in this point is very competent, say that similar moors are to be found along the whole coast from Skegness to Grimsby, particularly off Addlethorpe and Mablethorpe. The channels dividing the islets were, at the time we saw them, wide and of various depths; the islets themselves ranging generally from east to west in their largest dimensions. “We visited them again in the ebbs of the 20th and 21st.; and though it did not generally ebb so far as we expected, we could notwithstanding ascertain that they consisted almost entirely of roots, trunks, branches, and leaves of trees and shrubs, intermixed with some leaves of aquatic plants. The remains of some of these trees were still standing on their roots, while the trunks of the greater part lay scattered on the ground in every possible direction. The barks of trees and roots appeared generally as fresh as when they were growing; in that of the branches particularly, of which a great quantity was found, even the thin silver membranes of outer skin were discernible. The timber of all kinds on the contrary, was decomposed, and soft in the greatest part of the trees: in some, however, it was firm, especially in the roots. The people of the country have often found among them very sound pieces of timber, fit to be employed for several economical purposes. The sorts of wood which are still distinguishable are, birch, fir, and oak. Other woods evidently exist in these islets, of some of which we found the leaves in the soil; but our present knowledge of the comparative anatomy of timber is not so far advanced as to afford us the means of pronouncing with confidence respecting their species. In general the trunks, branches, and roots of the decayed trees were considerably flattened, which is a phenomenon observed in the _Surtarbrand_, or fossil wood of Iceland, and which Scheuchzer remarked also in the fossil wood found in the neighbourhood of the lake Thun in Switzerland.