180 Rev. Mr Smith on a Submarine Forest 



frequently exposed by the shifting of the sand ; and upon the 

 supposition that they were originally built nearly on a level 

 with the sea, it is calculated * that they must now be depressed 

 at least sixteen feet. Neither are the tin-mines described hy 

 Diodorus Siculus as frequent in these islands, any longer to be 

 found ; and the number of the islands is no more the same, as 

 Strabo states them to have been ten, and these ten have now 

 multiplied themselves into 140 or more, thus proving such a 

 general change of position in regard to the sea, as would lead 

 us to suppose that the tin-mines are now covered by the ocean, 

 and that the traditionary tale which connects the whole of 

 them with the neighbouring continent of Cornwall, is true -f*. 



Returning northwards, in Pembrokeshire, Giraldus Cambren- 

 sis says, that, in Henry the Second''s days, by the force of extra- 

 ordinary storms, the sands were driven off the shore, so that a 

 great niuuber of the roots and trunks of trees were discovered 

 in their natural position, with the marks of the axe quite fresh 

 upon them. In Neugal in the same county, and also in Cardi- 

 ganshire I, similar discoveries have been made. And still ap- 

 proaching our starting-post, Mr Stevenson has given us an ac- 

 count II of a submarine forest on the coast of Cheshire, between 

 the Mersey and the Dee. The Liverpool Courier of December 

 1827 stated, that, to the north of the Mersey, after a severe 

 storm also, trunks and roots of trees were found buried under 

 the sand below high water-mark, bearing evident proof that they 

 had a living existence on the spot \^ here they are now seen. In 

 the Harbour of Oban in Argyllshire, the flukes of anchors have 

 taken up pieces of moss from a depth of twenty fathoms § ; and 

 on the coast of the island of Coll I found submarine moss by 

 no means unfrequent. 



Similar observations have been made on the coasts of Swe- 

 den, Belgium and France, and perhaps every portion of the 

 world may yet make its contributions ; but, independent of 

 these, the cursory view now taken of the coast of Britain, de- 

 monstrates that the existence of non-marine remains in the bed 



* Edinburgh Phil. Tracs. 1753. f See Camben, p. 11. and Carew's Survey. 

 $ Edin. Phil. Tmns. passim. \\ Phil. Joum. April 1828. 



§ Anderson on Peat-moss. 



