If this was the case, no wonder so many trees are found covered, and, as it were, buried in such places all over England, but especially here.

For the roots being loosened by too excessive wet, they must necessarily fall down and sink in so soft a soil.

The people hereabouts search for them with poles and spits, and after marking the place, dig them up and use them for firing, for they are like torches, equally fit to burn and to give light, which is probably owing to the bituminous earth that surrounds them, whence the common people suppose them firs, though Caesar denies that there were such trees in Britain." But, though vast masses of the bog had been carried off by the Irwell and the Mersey, as related by Camden, the general appearance of the waste,--with the exception of the valley and the small stream,--was much the same as it continued to our own time.

Its surface was more broken and irregular, and black gaping chasms and pits filled with water and slime as dark-coloured as the turf whence it flowed, pointed out the spots where the swollen and heaving swamp had burst its bondage.

Narrow paths, known only to the poor turf-cutters and other labourers who dwelt upon its borders, and gathered fuel with poles and spits in the manner above described, intersected it at various points.