** Besides
the oak, I have also been shown pieces of fossil-wood of a paler
colour, and softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir: but, upon
a nice examination, and trial by fire, I could discover nothing
resinous in them; and therefore rather suppose that they were parts
of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree.
(* See his Hist. of Staffordshire.)
(** Old people have assured me, that on a winter's morning they
have discovered these trees in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay
longer over the space where they were concealed, than on the
surrounding morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but
consistent with true philosophy. Dr. Hales saith, 'That the warmth
of the earth, at some depth under ground, has an influence in
promoting a thaw, as well as the change of the weather from a
freezing to a thawing state, is manifest, from this observation, viz.
Nov. 29, 1731, a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by
eleven the next morning, mostly melted away on the surface of the
earth, except in several places in Bushy Park, where there were
drains dug and covered with earth, on which the snow continued to
lie, whether those drains were full of water or dry; as also where
elm-pipes lay under ground: a plain proof this, that those drains
intercepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from greater
depths below them: for the snow lay where the drain had more than
four feet depth of earth over it.
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