Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 050, part 1.djvu/71

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IX. An Account of some Trees discovered under-ground on the Shore at Mount's-Bay in Cornwall: In a Letter from the Rev. Mr. William Borlase, F. R. S. to the Rev. Dr. Lyttelton, Dean of Exeter.

Reverend Sir, Ludgvan, Jan 24. 1757.

Read Feb. 10,
1757.Being an airing the other day with Mrs. Borlase, on the sands below my house, we perceived the sands betwixt the Mount and Penzance much washed into pits, and bare stony areas, like a broken causey. In one of the latter, Mrs. B. as we passed by, thought she saw the appearance of a tree; and, upon a review, I found it to be the roots of a tree, branching off from the trunk in all directions. We made as much haste down to the same place in the afternoon as we could, and with proper help to make a farther examination. I measured and drew the remains; and about 30 feet to the west found the roots of another tree, but without any trunk, tho' displayed in the same horizontal manner as the first. Fifty feet farther to the north we found the body of an oak, three feet in diameter, reclining to the east. We dug about it, and traced it six feet deep under the surface; but its roots were still deeper than we could pursue them. Within a few feet distance was the body of a willow, one foot and a half in diameter, with the bark on; and one piece of a large hazel-branch, with its bark

on.

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