in reply to Mr. R. C. Taylor. 279 



position. But I am unable to perceive how they can reconcile 

 with their views of the question, the positive fact, that con- 

 siderable portions of what was dry land before the last irruption 

 of the waters, are at this time actually covered by the sea. 

 This is proved by the submarine forests, that have been found 

 on every coast of our island. The lands on which they grew, 

 must have been at that distant period far above the range of 

 the waves ; they must also have been submerged by that last 

 catastrophe, which in the current phraseology of the day is 

 called diluvian. It cannot then be denied, that before this 

 event, there were sylvan tracts which are now buried beneath 

 the floods ; and if we compare those remains of them, which 

 have been discovered on our own shores, with the correspond- 

 ing traces that exist on the opposite coasts of the continent, 

 it will be found by no means improbable, that they were 

 originally connected, and that the whole bed of the intervening 

 sea was at that time an extensive wooded valley. 



From whatever cause then, this last great influx of waters 

 over our quarter of the globe may have proceeded, it is ad- 

 mitted by all parties, that such an event did take place ; 

 neither can it be disputed, that in the course of their retreat 

 to their present level, the last remaining portions of them, 

 which left our district, must have flowed out through the 

 valleys, which at this time open to the ocean. Consequently 

 in the concluding stage of this revolution, there must have 

 been a period, at which the retiring flood was confined within 

 the limits of the valleys; or, in other words, when the valleys 

 were arms of the sea or aestuaries. Here then is the point, 

 at which the records of nature and the facts of history meet 

 and coincide. Even the most conflicting theoi'ies acknowledge 

 a certain series of changes, at the termination of which the 

 eastern valleys of Norfolk must have been connected branches 

 of an aestuary ; it is also allowed on all sides, from the most 

 positive and satisfactory evidence, that this was their actual 

 condition within less than seven centuries. Are we then to 

 believe, tliat these physical proofs and historical testimonies, 

 while they agree in every essential particular of the point 

 which they establish, still relate to two distinct facts and two 

 separate periods ? Is it not, on the contrary, more consistent 

 with the harmony of nature, more agreeable to sound reason, 

 more pertinent to an intelligible and unsophisticated philoso- 

 phy, to refer them to one and the same state of things ? Geo- 

 logical pha3iioinena inform us, that at some uncertain date, an 

 aestuary must have occupied these valleys; History announces, 

 that at a definite a^ra such an aestuary did exist. By connect- 

 ing 



