XXIX. — On a Submarine Forest in the Frith of Tay, with 

 Observations on the formation of Submarine Forests in 

 general. By John Fleming, D. D. F. R. S. Edin. 



(Read June 17. 1822. J 



J_ HE title which I have given to this paper, is, perhaps, 

 faulty, and apt to lead the imagination to expect a description 

 of the various forms of those sea-weeds which clothe the chan- 

 nel of the deep ; — the arrangement of the species, as depend- 

 ing on the soil and depth of water, the food which they yield 

 to the various creatures that browse upon them, and the pro- 

 tection they afford to such as take refuge among their leaves 

 and branches. Very different, however, is the scene which I 

 propose to describe, — a bed of peat-moss, covered by the sea 

 at every full tide, but indicating, by the appearances which it 

 exhibits, that its present low level is different from its origi- 

 nal position. In other words, it is a geological phenomenon, 

 occurring in the Frith of Tay, similar to the one observed 

 on the Lincolnshire coast, which, in 1796, was examined by 

 the late Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Joseph Correa de Serra, 

 and described by the latter in the Transactions of the Royal 

 Society of London for 1799, p. 145, under the title, " On a 



Sub- 



