In the year 1708, a breach made by the Thames, at an extraordinary high
tide, inundated the marshes of Dagenham and Havering, in Essex. Such was
the impetuous rush of the water, that a large passage or channel was
torn up, three hundred feet in width, and in some parts twenty feet in
depth. In this way, a great number of trees, that had been buried there
many ages before, were exposed to view. With one exception, that of a
large oak, having the greatest part of its bark, and some of its heads
and roots in a perfect state, these trees bore a greater resemblance to
alder than to any other description of wood. They were black and hard,
and their fibers were extremely tough. No doubt was entertained of their
having grown on the spot where they lay; and they were so numerous, that
in many places they afforded steps to the passengers. They were imbedded
in a black oozy soil, on the surface of which they lay prostrate, with a
covering of grey mold.
In passing along the channel torn up by the water, vast numbers of the
stumps of these subterraneous trees, remaining in the posture in which
they grew, were to be seen, some with their roots running down, and
others branching and spreading about in the earth, as is observed in
growing trees. That they were the ruins, not of the deluge, but of a
later age, has been inferred from the existence of a bed of shells,
which lies across the highway, on the descent near Stifford bridge,
leading to South Okendon. At a perpendicular depth of twenty feet
beneath this bed of shells, and at the distance of nearly two hundred
feet, in the bottom of the valley, runs a brook which empties itself
into the Thames at Purfleet. This brook is known to ebb and flow with
the Thames; and, consequently, if the bed of shells, as has been
conjectured, was deposited in that place by an inundation of the Thames,
it must have been such as to have drowned a vast proportion of the
surrounding country, and have overtopped the trees near the river, in
West Horrock, Dagenham, and the other marshes, overturning them in its
progress. In support of this hypothesis, it should be remarked, that the
bed of earth in which the trees grew, was entire and undisturbed, and
consisted of a spongy, light, oozy soil, filled with the roots of reeds,
of a specific gravity much less than that of the stratum above it.
The levels of Hatfield chase were, in the reign of Charles I., the
largest chase of red deer in England. They contained about one hundred
and eighty thousand acres of land, about one-half of which was yearly
inundated; but being sold to one Vermuiden, a Dutchman, he contrived, at
a great labor and expense, to dischase, drain, and reduce these lands to
arable and pasture grounds not subject to be overflowed. In every part
of the soil, in the bottom of the river Ouse even, and in that of the
adventitious soil of all marsh land, together with the skirts of the
Lincolnshire wold, vast multitudes of the roots and trunks of trees of
different sizes are found. The roots are fixed in the soil, in their
natural position, as thick as they could have grown; and near to them
lie the trunks. Many of these trees appear to have been burned, and
others to have been chopped and squared; and this in such places, and at
such depths, as could never have been opened, since the destruction of
the forest, until the time of the drainage. That this was the work of
the Romans, who were the destroyers of all the woods and forests which
are now found underground in the bottoms of moors and bogs, is evidenced
by the coins and utensils, belonging to that nation, which have been
collected, as well in these levels, as in other parts of Great Britain
where these subterraneous forests have been discovered.