424 GLANCE AT THE GEOLOGY OF 



Furness, published in 1803, at p. 383, in speaking 

 of Rampside, says, " that the sands, on the south 

 side of this village, cover a stratum of blue clay, 

 immediately below which lies a bed of peat moss, 

 mixed in many places with decayed hazels, and 

 nuts upon their branches.* Upon the sands, on 

 both sides of the isle of Fouldrey, numerous roots 

 of large trees are to be seen after high tides." 

 At another place he says, " the roots of trees 

 demonstrate that a part of these sands has been a 

 forest ; they confirm the conjecture of Camden, 

 that the shore was once situated a great way far- 

 ther to the west, or rather to the south-west, than 

 it was two centuries ago, and that a great tract of 

 land has been wasted by the sea." No reason- 

 able doubt can exist, but that the form of the land 

 now constituting Low Furness, is very different 

 to what it was two thousand years ago. 



The lower part of the country, whether on the 

 coast or in the valleys, is much enveloped by a 



* Some persons, who view every deposit of peat containing 

 the remains of trees, met with near a beach, as evidence of a 

 subsidence of the land, would term the above a submerged 

 forest, but it is far more probable, that a change of the cur- 

 rents in Morecambe bay has cut away the land on the coast 

 above described, than that the land itself has subsided. 



