THE SUBMERGED FOREST. 6? 



whole Sussex shore ; and even on the east side of Eng- 

 land they have been traced in the estuary of the Thames, 

 at Cromer in Norfolk, in the Wash, and near the mouth 

 of the Humber. 



In fact, the evidence goes to show that at no very 

 remote period the land of England stretched farther out 

 to sea in every direction than it does at the present day. 

 That most lively and amusing of mediaeval writers, 

 Giraldus Cambrensis whose entertaining travels would, 

 I am sure, be much more read if his name did not sug- 

 gest incongruous notions of dry monastic chroniclers 

 has given us a full and really scientific account of one 

 such submerged wood which he came across in South 

 Wales ; and ever since his time notices of these sub- 

 marine remains have frequently been published. Yet 

 no general explanation of their occurrence had been 

 attempted till within the last few years. Even now, 

 only a small number of scientific men have thoroughly 

 realized the wide range of the facts to be explained in 

 the case of the English coast. 



The date of the submerged forests is, geologically 

 speaking, quite modern. The stumps are still woody in 

 texture, showing a bright pink hue when cut ; and they 

 would sometimes make very good timber if the softened 

 outer layer were once scraped off. Twigs, nuts, and 

 even leaves are often found almost unaltered in the 

 brown clay which surrounds the stumps. In the Bristol 

 Channel, which was long a broad open valley, like that 

 of the Thames or the Humber in our own time, caves 

 are still to be found in the cliffs which once overlooked 

 the wide plains ; and in these caves are numerous un- 

 fossilized bones of recent animals, devoured there by 

 bears and hyenas. In one such cave no fewer than a 

 thousand antlers of the reindeer were discovered. Such 



