SUBMERGED FOREST AT RHYL. 267 
thick, but generally from four to six inches thick. The wood of 
the tree stumps was on the outside so soft that the blade of an 
ordinary pocket knife could be easily thrust into it; the inner 
wood, however, was of a dark brown colour, and extremely 
hard. 
So far as it is possible to form an opinion, I should think the 
Submerged Forest at Rhyl was contemporary with the Sub- 
merged Forests of the shores of Lancashire and Cheshire. . If 
any historical data could be found of this forest it would be of 
great scientific interest; I fear, however, it flourished in the 
Prehistoric Period. 
That the Submerged Forests along the coasts of North Wales 
belong to a period beyond that of ‘‘ authentic records,” would 
appear from PENNANT’S Notes in his Zours zn Wales, vol. i1., 
pp. 113-14. 
‘“*Pass over Gronant Moor. There is a tradition, that its 
extent was so great, that the people on this side could held 
conversation over the channel with those of Cheshire. This 
may be exaggerated; but from authentic records, it appears, 
that this flat was formerly very extensive, and that it had been 
reduced to its present scanty limits by the fury of the sea, which 
still possesses its antient place. Previous to that catastrophe it 
was possessed by the See of St. Asaph, by virtue of a grant made 
by Edward the Black Prince, son of Edward III., to Llewelyn 
ap Madoc, elected Bishop of St. Asaph in 1357. The inundation 
happened in the reign of Henry V. Previous to that time the 
Bishop paid annually into the exchequer at Chester, as an 
acknowledgment, the sum of twenty marks; but Henry V., in 
1414, and Henry VI, in 1445 and 1451, in consideration of the 
misfortune, released the See from that rent. If this record did 
not remain an incontestable proof of. the ravages of the ocean 
on this part of the country, there exists other natural ones that 
wouid have given reasonable ground of suspicion. The Hyle 
sands, which run for twelve or fourteen miles parallel to the 
Hundred of Wirral, in Cheshire, and are divided from Wales by 
a narrow channel, were once, in all probability, part of the firm 
land of England. A few miles to the west of Gronant Moor, 
under.the parish of Abergeleu, in Denbighshire, are to be seen 
at low water (1810), very remote from the shore, bedded in 
sand, immense numbers of oak trees; a forest before this event. 
Lastly, in the churchyard wall of Abergeleu is a dateless epitaph, 
in Welsh, signifying that a person who was interred there lived 
three miles to the north of that spot, a tract now entirely 
possessed by the sea.” 
PENNANT again in vol. iii.; p. 156, refers to the remains of a 
Submerged Forest on the shore at Abergele: ‘‘ I have observed, 
at low water, far from the clayey banks, a long tract of hard 
K 
