“In the Soil of all…are found infinite Millions of the Roots and Bodies of Trees of all bigneſſes great and little…” (p981)
In the slow, slow formation of peat, waterlogged conditions prevent organic matter from rotting away as it normally would. Things get preserved; traces of times past, buried in the black depths. ‘Bog bodies’ – men lost to the peat in the depths of time – alongside tools, coins, bits of boats. And trees.
The excerpt above (in blue) is from a letter written by the Reverend Abraham de la Pryme, published in November 1701 in the periodical Philosophical Transactions, specifically concerning “trees found under Ground in Hatfield Chace.” Such letters, written over three hundred years ago, offer us another glimpse of past times, the language simultaneously familiar and yet strange.
Abraham de la Pryme was born in the Hatfield area in 1671. He was fortunate to be able to study at Cambridge, where he pursued an interest in natural history, chemistry and ‘magic’, alongside the more usual academic studies of his time (de la Pryme 1870). He retained interest in natural history after leaving Cambridge, as his 1701 letter shows.
Making sense of how the landscapes, landforms, rocks and sediments around us were formed is a core task of the Earth sciences. But it is no easy task. Inevitably we are looking at an ‘end product’. As Barbara Kennedy puts it in her book Inventing the Earth (2005), we are seeing “the outcome of unsupervised natural experiments often of immense duration” (p5). We cannot see what the starting point was, and often we cannot see the processes that have been happening since. So how did the enquiring mind of 1701 go about developing an explanation?
A focus on evidence
At first glance de la Pryme’s letter seems rather rambling. There is no mention of the trees on the first page, which instead celebrates to Sir Cornelius Vermuiden’s efforts to drain the Levels. But the next four pages provide quite dense description of the submerged trees. A short excerpt gives a flavour:
“…commonly called Firrs, Oaks, Birch, Beech, Yew, Wirethorn, Willow, Aſh, &c. the Roots of all, or moſt of which ſtand in the Soil in their natural poſtures, as this as ever they could grow, as the bodies of moſt of them lye by their proper Roots. Moſt of the great Trees, by all their length about a yard from their great Roots (unto which they did moſt evidently belong, both by their ſituation, and the ſameneſs of the Wood) with their tops commonly North Eaſt, tho indeed the ſmaller Trees lye almoſt every way croſs thoſe...”
The letter goes on to explain that some of the fallen trees have then grown branches upwards from their trunks, effectively forming new trees. Some of the trees have clearly been burnt, and some chopped. Artefacts found alongside the trees include broken axe heads and wooden wedges, along with Roman coins. In describing the trees (among other things) at such length, paying attention to details that might seem irrelevant to us, de la Pryme is exhibiting the hallmark of all good science: he is presenting the evidence that is available to him.
Conscious that the “Subterraneous Trees” may seem incredible to his reader, de la Pryme then draws on the accounts of others – secondary evidence – reporting similar buried trees elsewhere:
“Cambden and others have told us, and it is a thing very common, and well known that moſt of the great Moraſſes, Moſſes, Fens and Bogs in Somerſetshire, Cheſhire, Lancaſhire, Weſtmoreland, Yorkſhire, Staffordſhire, Lincolnſhire, and other Counties in England, are full of the Roots and Bodies of great Trees…” (p984)
Again, he goes into some detail. His descriptions of submerged trees elsewhere extends across two pages, and beyond England into the Netherlands, France, Switzerland and elsewhere.
The move to explanation
Having presented the evidence, de la Pryme then turns to consider explanation. He points out that “most men” would look to Noah’s Flood for explanation. However, de la Pryme dismisses this quickly:
“But then if ſo, how comes it that the Trees and their Roots lye ſo lovingly one near another, and why lengthways, from South Weſt to North Eaſt? Why ſome of them Burnt? Some Chopt? Some Riven? Some Squared, ſome Bored through? Why the Soil at the very Bottom of a great River lying in Rigg and Fur? and why the Coins of Roman Emperors found in thoſe places? &c.” (986)
Here again we can see good scientific practice at work: de la Pryme is testing the Noah’s Flood hypothesis against the available evidence, and finds it wanting. He proposes that, rather than having been transported by floodwaters, the trees grew “in the very places where we now find them.”
Like all good scientists, de la Pryme subjects his own idea to critical scrutiny. He considers two possible objections. First, that an account from Julius Caesar says that no fir trees grew in Britain in his time. de la Pryme points out the types of tree commonly called ‘Fir tree’ were plentiful in northern Europe, as well as present in Scotland and Staffordshire, at the time he was writing. The evidence is clear that such trees can grow in Britain.
Second, those tree species grow on high mountains and rocks, rather than low ground such as around Hatfield. Again, the objection is dismissed with reference to the available evidence. de la Pryme notes that such trees are plentiful in the low countries around the Baltic Sea and in New England. He argues that these tree species will grow wherever there is sandy soil, rather than being limited to high ground. This is consistent with the evidence of the Hatfield submerged trees, where the “Roots of the Firs or Ptich-Trees always ſtood in the Sand, and the Oaks in the Clay” (p987). He has made a case that it is perfectly feasible that the trees grew where they are currently found.
Next he considers the cause of the trees’ destruction. Here he uses secondary evidence citing “the Antient Roman Writers and Hiſtorians” (p987). According to several such historical accounts, when Romans invaded Britain, the “Wild Britains…always fled into the…Miry Woods and low Watry Foreſts” (p987). de la Pryme goes on to describe multiple examples of places and times where this happened. (Again, he is thorough in the way he presents the evidence.) The locals disappeared into the woods and, in some cases at least, the Romans’ response was to destroy those woods. de la Pryme points out that the Hatfield ‘forest’ was close to the main Roman route from the South to the North of the country. This forest, he explains:
“…ſwarmed with wild Britains, who were continually making their Salies out of the ſame, and their Retreats into it again, intercepting [the Romans’] Proviſions, taking and deſtroying their Carriages, killing their Allies and Paſſengers, and diſturbing their Garriſons…” (986)
It seems that the Romans had reason to destroy the forest. de la Pryme suggests that they took advantage of a strong South-Westerly wind to burn much of it. This explains the orientation of the larger trees, lying South-West to North-East. Any trees that survived lacked the support of those around them, so were more vulnerable to being uprooted by wind. Falling trees dammed the rivers, which caused flooding, and this gave rise to the peat development. He points out that his proposed new explanation is consistent with the available evidence: the presence of Roman coins and axe-heads; the large number of trees that are burnt, while others have clearly been chopped; the trees remaining near their roots, with a South-West to North-East orientation; some of the larger trees having roots still attached.
Science in context
Writing at the very beginning of the eighteenth century, then, Abraham de la Pryme demonstrates in practice some key characteristics of good science: describing the available evidence; and testing hypotheses against this evidence.
This does not mean that we would accept his conclusion now, three hundred years later. More recent research tells us that the peat of Hatfield and Thorne Moors developed from around 5-6000 years before present (van de Noort 2001; Buckland & Smith 2003; Whitehouse 2010). The Romans arrived in Britain in AD43, just under 2000 years ago, so the destruction of the forests happened rather earlier than de la Pryme thought.
Here we need to think about the context of the early 1700s. In the twenty-first century, our understanding of the peat is framed by the notion of ‘deep time’. Planet Earth has a long history – in the region of 4.5 billion years – which provides plenty of scope for long-term environmental change. But this ‘scientific’ understanding of the age of the Earth developed from the 1800s onwards*. In Abraham de la Pryme’s time, the dominant idea of the age of the Earth came from Archbishop James Ussher’s analysis of Biblical writings, in the mid-1600s. Ussher concluded that the Creation happened in 4004 BC, so Earth was only around 6000 years old.
Rev. Abraham de la Pryme made very careful use of evidence, at a time when science as we know it was still relatively new. But we can also see from his writing that science is shaped by the dominant assumptions of the day. Science is not independent of society. Scientific studies are carried out by particular people, in particular places, at particular times. How different will our current understanding of environmental change look in three hundred years’ time?
*Although Jordan (2016) points out that some of the ancient (e.g. Greek) scholars had longer conceptions of Earth’s history than is commonly recognised.
References:
Buckland, PC & Smith, BM (2003) Equifinality, conservation and the origins of lowland raised mires. The case of Thorne and Hatfield Moors. Thorne & Hatfield Moors Papers 6: 30-51 http://thmcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/vol6_bucklandsmith.pdf
de la Pryme, A (1701) Part of a letter from the Reverend Mr Abraham de la Pryme to the publisher, concerning trees found under ground in Hatfield Chace. Philosophical Transactions (1683-1775), 22: 980-992.
de la Pryme, C (1870) Preface. In de la Pryme, A, The Diary of Abraham de La Pryme, The Yorkshire Antiquary. Published for the Surtees Society by Andrews & Co, Durham. Brookhaven Press. https://archive.org/details/diaryofabrahamde00delarich/page/n7
Jordan, J (2016) Ages past: ancient geology and modern preconceptions. Earth Sciences History 35 (2): 237-264.
Kennedy, B (2005) Inventing the Earth: Ideas on Landscape Development Since 1740. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Van de Noort, R (2001) Thorne Moors: a contested wetland in north-eastern England. In In Coles, B; Olivier, A. & Bull, D (eds), The Heritage Management of Wetlands. European Archological Council. 133-140.
Whitehouse, NJ (2010) Conservation lessons from the Holocene record in ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’ landscapes. In Hall, M (ed) Restoration and history: the search for a usable environmental past. London: Routledge. 87-97.