ON THE ICTIS OF DIODORUS SICULUS. 303 
The most striking evidences of the accumula- 
tion of detritus have been observed on some parts 
of the Cornish coast. In the Carnon stream- 
works, to the north of Falmouth, a few years ago, 
two human skulls were found, imbedded, with 
other animal remains, in a mass of vegetable 
matter, at the extraordinary depth of more than 
fifty feet below the level of the river, and covered 
by several successive deposits of silt, shells and 
sand ;* and the district around Hayle, extending 
nearly without interruption from St. Ives to Pad- 
stow, is little more than one continued desert of 
sand, which, in many places, has accumulated to 
the height of sixty feet, and beneath which, human 
bones and the remains of ancient buildings have 
been found. There is no local tradition, relating 
either to the time or manner, in which these 
monuments of human existence were entombed: 
but it has been inferred, from certain ancient 
records of the Arundel family, that the cata- 
strophe took place about the twelfth century ;} and 
in examining the old Chronicles, for notices of 
* Transactions of the Geological Society of Cornwall, 
Vol. IV. p. 585; quoted by Sir Henry T. De la Beche, in his 
Report on the Geology of Cornwall, &e. Chap. xiii. p. 404. 
Bakewell’s Introd. to Geology, Chap. i. p. 22. (5th Ed.) 
+ Guide to Mount’s Bay, &c. pp. 161, 162. 
