“Mr. _Elstobb_, in his Historical Account of the Bedford Level, affirms, that in his perambulations over the levels of Sutton and Mepal, and others adjacent, in the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, he observed, at the depth of about three feet under the present moorish soil, multitudes of roots of large trees, standing as they had grown, from which the bodies had manifestly been sawn off. Some of them he saw lying at a small distance from their roots, at the depth above-mentioned; and he was credibly informed that great numbers had been and were still found severed and lying in the same manner. “He also relates that in driving the piles for securing the foundation of the great sluice at the mouth of the new cut, a little above Boston, in 1764, roots of trees were found at the depth of eighteen feet below the pasturage surface, standing as the trees had grown. Some of them were obliged to be chopt through to make a passage for the piles. In some other parts of the trench dug for laying the same foundations, small shells were discovered, disposed in the same manner as they are often found at the bottom and sides of the marsh creeks. “The preceding instances are sufficient proofs, that the surface of this level was anciently much lower than it is at present; {60} and also that it must have remained dry for a vast number of years, otherwise the trees would never have attained to the magnitude which they appear to have done by the above statements. In what age, or from what causes the waters overspread the country, and converted this extensive district into fens, is uncertain; yet there are reasons to believe, that the great level would have remained in a flourishing state till the present time, if the operations of nature had not been interrupted by the works of art. “_Dugdale_, in a quotation from the Life of Agricola, by Tacitus, says that “the Britons complained that their hands and bodies were worn out and consumed by the Romans, in clearing the woods, and embanking the fens.” This sentence, when considered conjointly with the foregoing accounts of the state in which the trees have been found, enables us to form an idea of the time when the woods were destroyed, which appears to have been before the Romans had secured the entire possession of the island. Some of the trees, we find, were _burnt_, and others _sawn_ down, and this evidently without any regard either to profit or utility, since the trunks were left to perish on the soil where they grew. It is probable therefore, that they were felled to deprive the Britons of shelter, and to enable the Roman soldiers to march in greater security, and obtain an easier conquest.