136 NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
be applied to it; still remembring to draw it back at every progress of three, or
four inches, which the Auger makes for the cleansing of it from the Chips, lest
the Auger break ; continue this work till the Tret or piece of Timber be bored as
far as you think convenient, and when you desire to inlarge the hole, change your
Auger Bits as the Figure represents them."
GEOLOGY.
Old Accounts of Discoveries in the Alluvium of the
Thames Valley.—In Pepys's Diary (Sept. 22nd, 1665) is the
following:—
"At Blackwall. Here is observable what Johnson tells us, that in digging
the late Docke, they did 12 feet under ground find perfect trees over-covered
with earth. Nut trees, with the branches and the very nuts upon them; some
of whose nuts he showed us. Their shells, black with age, and their kernell,
upon opening, decayed, but their shell perfectly hard as ever. And a yew tree
(upon which the very ivy was taken up whole about it) which upon cutting with
an addes, we found to be rather harder than the living tree usually is."
In the Times of Dec. 7, 1902, the following paragraph is
reprinted from the Times of Dec. 6, 1802:—
"The Forest that has been discovered underground in the Isle of Dogs, is
supposed to be the greatest natural curiosity in this Empire; perhaps in Europe.
All that is called antiquity seems but yesterday compared with this wonderful
ruin, of which there is no tradition whatsoever. Immense trees, with their bark
uninjured, although their trunks are rotten, glass, charcoal, filbert shells, perfect
human bones, etc., etc., are amongst the contents of this unsuspected sub-
terranean.
While Pepys's spelling is evidently a little more ancient than
that of the Times of 1802, the treatment of the discovery in the
latter suggests less experience of dock excavation, and conse-
quently a greater antiquity than the account of 1665.—T.V.H.
MISCELLANEA.
"Anent a Forest Lodge in 1444" (E.N. xii., 145).—
Since I had the pleasure of reporting on Mr. Hyett's interesting
MS., I have come on an entry or two in the Patent Rolls which
throw a probable light on his possession of it. In 17 Edward
IV. (1478), on March 2nd, George Hiett had a grant for life of
the office of Rider of the King's Forest of Dene, co. Gloucester,
void by the death of Richard Hiet, his father, with the
accustomed fees. This he surrendered in 1480; but in 1484
(2 Richard III.) he had a re-grant of the same office during