WCP6948

[1]

Copy of letter to Dr Wallace July 13. 1909 MBS[?]

I hope you are well [illeg.] and getting on well with the new book you mentioned in your last note to me —

Excuse me troubling you with a note of mine, for I feel you have no time to spare from your own work. However the most interesting discovery of some Mosses & Hepaticae in an old Prehistoric boat which have occupied me with the microscope during the last 3 weeks I though might interest you so venture to trouble you with a short note.

This Old Boat, of which probably you may jave some previous notice of was found near Brigg in Lincolnshire about the year 1888¹. It was discovered [illeg.] at a depth of a few feet below the surface, in digging for the foundations of some fresh buildings & being of so remarkable a size was carefully excavated and a temporary shed made for it into which it was placed at Brigg. At the time the late Dr. Sorby of Sheffield went to see it, and by some means found a small piece of moss that had been used by the early builders of the boat to caulk [illeg.] inboard [2] part at one end of the boat probably for a bed or to be used as a cabin.

The boat is a dug out made from a large solid oak tree and is some 45 ft [or] more in length, and has now got into the possession of the Hull museum. There was a note concerning this boat in the Naturalist for July — 1880 in which is mentioned the dimensions &c. of the <amount> and also giving an account of the piece of moss picked out of it by Dr. Sorby and sent to Mr Hobkirk of Huddersfield for examination, who dissected the small portion & distinctly made out the moss, which proved to be Plagiothecium undulatum, one of the handsomest & largest of the <Hypnaceae> or Feather mosses of our damp woods & still fairly plentiful in many localities in the Castle Howard Woods & in the glens of N.E. Yorks. Moors.

On getting the boat to Hull Mr Sheppard the curator of the Museum examined for some more of this caulking material and sent me a small portion to dissect, which I at once set to work at and my first find was another of the large mosses [illeg.] famariscifolia quite distinct from the Plagiothecium [3] previously found by Mr Hobkirk who was an old friend of mine & was certain that he could not mistake the Plagiothecium. This discovery of another kind interested me intensely, & I at once asked Mr Sheppard if he could get any more of the caulking debris & send me more of it. This he did, the whole material however only weighed about an ounce which he sent, and so exceedingly tender most resembling a piece of dry tinder from an old box, that was formerly used to obtain a light with the brimstone match from the spark of burning tinder. I set to work to analyse this material at once, & the first plant I found was this moss Plagiothecium <items> confirming Hobkirk's original find this became intensely interesting & I carefully preserved in my dissection very careful dissection the frail material & have succeeded in find[ing] no less than 18 distinct plants mosses from this long buried boat. All so far for I have still about half of the material yet to dissect. I give you a list of these[;] one half of them with the belong to the true moss section the other to the Hepaticae or Scale Mosses.

Mr Sheppard who is a good geologist speaks very confidently of the age of the boat, however supposing it to be half the time or 1000 years since it was built & caulked with moss by the builders, it is most intensely interesting to see such fragile plants have retained their ^cell structure and can be <readily> detected [4] by the microscope. During my working at the material I think now my old master Dr Spruce would have enjoyed the analysing of such a find — the smaller & more tender Hepatics have come out the best. I can understand this in some measure, for these grow very often amongst the larger mosses, & often as it were epiphytic upon them, so whilst the larger mosses have been much broken and crushed in the caulking process, the smaller ones have escaped to a great extent — the delicate tissue of mosses in their ^fresh growing state is very thin and frail, but their long buried material you may imagine is exceedingly so, that the leaves & parts of the plants I am mounting on glass slides as they could not well be preserved in any other way. —

I went up to an excursion meeting of the Yorkshire Naturalists at Runswick a little North of Whitby on the east coast and took a few slides with me, to let the members see them which much interested both botanists & geologists for I said to the Geologists [illeg.] from it then a few fossil mosses to look up. I enclose a newspaper clip with a short note of their meeting.— We are having here a remarkably cool summer so far & have scarcely had a hot day beyond 2 in May, since the country however looks well & the corn crops are all <shooting> into ear and are very promising. I am glad to say my daughter keeps in good health & myself [illeg.] ^{I am well myself} only I find years telling upon me & I cannot scramble about so much, need have to be content with the a 2 or 3 miles walk in a fair level road[?] [illeg.]. We both write in our Kind regards

I am yours sincerely | Matthew B Slater [signature]

[5]²

THE MUSEUM

YORK

July 7th 1909

Dear Mr Slater

Will you very kindly tell me the name of the enclosed Lily? and is the other plant the Anthemis maritima the Sea Chamomile: it grows in profusion on the rocks cliffs at Bempton.

How are you getting on with the mosses in the ancient British Boat?

Yours truly | Oxley Grabham [signature]

Anthemis³ arvensis var maritima

Lileum croceum

sent to & named & replied to note July 8 [6]

THE MUSEUM

YORK

June 17th 1909

Dear Mr Slater

Curiously enough soon after I went into the big tent at the Gala yesterday afternoon I came upon the very thing we were looking at "Eremurus robustus" but I could not find the amaryllis [.] Would you kindly give me the name of the enclosed.

Yours sincerely | Oxley Grabham [signature]