“An exact resemblance exists between maritime Flanders and the opposite coast of England, both in point of elevation above the sea, and of the internal structure and arrangement of the soils. On both sides strata of clay, silt, and sand, (often mixed with decayed vegetables) are found near the surface; and in both, these superior materials cover a very deep stratum of blueish or dark coloured clay, unmixed with extraneous bodies. On both sides they are the lowermost part of the soil, existing between two ridges of high lands, on their respective sides of the same narrow sea. These two countries are certainly coeval; and whatever proves that maritime Flanders has been for many ages out of the sea, must, in my opinion, prove also that the forest we are speaking of was long before that time destroyed and buried under a stratum of soil. Now it seems proved from historical records, carefully collected by several learned members of the Brussels Academy, that no material change has happened in the lowermost part of maritime Flanders during the period of the last two thousand years. “I am therefore inclined to suppose the original catastrophe which buried this forest to be of very ancient date; but I suspect the inroad of the sea which uncovered the decayed trees of the islands of Sutton, to be comparatively recent. The state of the leaves and of the timber, and also the tradition of the neighbouring people concur to strengthen this suspicion.” The reader, it is hoped, will excuse, and even approve the length of this curious extract, as it seems so well calculated to account for and elucidate divers striking phenomena in the natural history of the Fens. Here it may not be improper further to observe, that the forest above described seems to have extended from the coast of Lincolnshire a considerable way along the Norfolk coast; as there is on the shore, near Thornham in that county, at low water, the appearance of a large forest having been, at some period, interred and swallowed up by the waves. Stools of numerous large timber trees, and many trunks, are to be seen, but so rotten, that they may be penetrated by a spade. These lie in a black mass of vegetable fibres, consisting of decayed branches, leaves, rushes, flags, &c. The extent of this once sylvan tract [on the Norfolk coast] must have been great, from what is discoverable; and at high water, now covered by the tides, is in one spot from five to six-hundred acres. No hint of the manner, or the time, in which this submersion happened, can be traced. Nothing like a bog is near, and the whole beach besides is composed of a fine ooze, or marine clay. {49} SECTION IV. _Some further geological observations relating to the Fens_, _extracted from Dugdale’s Letters to Sir Thomas Browne_.