Manchester Memoirs, Vol. hi. (191 2), No. 10. 



XVI. A Note on the Submerged Forest at Llanaber, 

 Barmouth. 



By T. G. B. OSBORN, M.Sc, 



Lecturer in Ecovoiiiic Bolauy in ilie ]'ictoria University of Manchester. 

 {Read I\Iay jth, igi2. Kecei^^ed for Publication July i^th, igr2.) 



Some two miles north of Barmouth, on the Welsh 

 coast, there may be seen at low tide on the foreshore 

 about the village of Llanaber, the remains of a "sub- 

 merged forest." My attention was first drawn to it when 

 staying there in August, 191 1, and on a visit in April of 

 this j^ear specimens of wood and peat were collected for 

 examination. It had originally been intended to make a 

 more detailed survey the following summer, but, circum- 

 stances having arisen which prevented this, the following 

 note has been written. 



Several "submerged forests" are known along the 

 coast of Lancashire and Wales, e.g., at the Alt Mouth, 

 Llasowe, Penmaenmawr, Aberdovey, and Tenby. Those 

 at the Alt Mouth and Llasowe have been described with 

 some detail, and are stated to belong to the Post-glacial 

 or Recent times.* There do not appear to be any 

 reasons to suppose that the deposit at Llanaber is of very 

 different age, though the floristic composition differs in 

 some respects from the more northerly forest. 



Barmouth stands at the mouth of the Mawddach 

 estuary, and is m_ostly built upon steeply rising slopes of 

 Cambrian sandstone. The railway station and a part of 

 the town are built on an alluvial flat or raised beach. 

 This runs north from the town as a strip of flat country 

 on the landward side of which the hills ascend, while it is 

 bounded on the shoreward side b)- a pebble storm -beach 

 * Morton, G. II., " Geology of the Country around Liverpool," 1S97. 



September ^th, igi2. 



