July 1, 1896 ] 



KNOWLEDGE 



145 



LONDON : JULY 1, 1896. 



CONTENTS. 



^ PAGE 



The Submerged Forests of the Wirral, in Cheshire. 



Bt IIenut O Fckbes, LL.D., F.R.G.S. {Illustrated) ... 145 

 Aluminium: Its History, Manufacture, and Future.— II. 



Bt Samukl EiBn.\L, D.Sc Lond., F.I.C 148 



Some Curious Facts In Plant Distribution. — III. Bt 



W. BoTTiNG Hfm^let, F.R.^ .". 149 



Greek Vases.— III. B.— Black-Figured Vases. Bt H. B. 



Walters, M.A., F.S.A. {Illustrafed) .' ... 151 



Comets of Short Period. Bt W. E. Plummeh, M.A , 



F.R.A.S. '. 155 



Photograph of the Region of the Spiral Nebula 

 Messier 33 Trianguli. Bt Isaac R 'Berts, D.S.-., 



F.E.S. (PIn/e) ■ 158 



Notices of Books 158 



Letters :—TnoMA>; Mot ; E. WoHtwiii 160 



About Death Rates. Bt Alex. B. MAcDo-nALL, M.A. 



(lUu.'itrafeit) 160 



The Foldings of the Rocks. Bt Prof. .1. Looax Lobirt, 



F.G.S ■ 162 



Waves. — VII. The Artistic Study of Waves. By 



Taughan CoRNlsn, M.Se. (Plate) ". 163 



The Face of the Sky for July. By Herbert Sadler, 



F.R.A.S. 166 



Chess Column. By C. D. Locock, B-A..Oxon. 167 



THE SUBMERGED FORESTS OF THE WIRRAL, 

 IN CHESHIRE. 



By Henry 0. Forbes, LL.D., FE.G.S. 

 Director of Mu-ti'ums to the Corporation of Liverpool. 



THE pedestrian proceeding along the Cheshire shore 

 from the mouth of the Mersey to that of the Dee, 

 will, when about half-way along, find his progress 

 interrupted by the walls of the ancient castle of 

 Leasowe, tlie residence till quite recently of the 

 Cust family. It is an interesting structure and worthy of 

 a visit, if for nothing else than the fine view over the 

 Wirral — as the interesting country between the two rivers 

 is termed — to be had from its tower. It is said to have 

 been built by a Lord D-rby in the reign of Elizabeth as a 

 residence during his visits to the races annually held at 

 Leasowe, when it was known as "Meek Beggars' Hall." 

 Before it was dismantled of its contents a few months ago 

 one of its chambers was panelled and roofed with fittings 

 of the famous Star Chamber in Westminster Palace, 

 purchased and brought here on its demolition. This 

 interesting interior has, we believe, been transported back 

 to London to the family's town residence. 



On the walls of the staircase there hung, till the same 

 recent period, equally interesting and much more ancient 

 objects of interest. These were the almost perfect skull 

 of the great primigrnial ox [Box primiiieniiis), some fine 

 antlers of the red deer {Cernis c/c/'/ik.'.), and bones of the 



short-horned ox (Bos longifrons). They were all dyed 

 black from their long repose in the vegetable mould of the 

 forest in which they roamed, over part of which the castle 

 now stands. And who may dare to say that these same 

 kine may not have sheltered under the very oak trees out 

 of whose disentombed boles the black furniture of the 

 library and seats in the hall were made ? 



All along the sea^vard front of the castle a strong 

 shelving embankment of masonry, against which the sea 

 washes at high tides, protects the site on which the castle 

 stands from the action of the waves. On the top of 

 this embankment oar itinerant palteontologist may rest 

 with pleasure on a fine day, and, while surveying the 

 mercantile fleets that are ceaselessly passing in and out 

 of the estuary of the Mersey, watch the thousand islands 

 of sand and mud as they rise above the water with the 

 receding tide, the results of erosion and redistribution 

 which are modifying the coast-line. 



Fifty years ago the sea was half a mile distant from the 

 castle front, and no embankment was required, for a broad 

 rampirt of sand hills protected it. Since then the hori- 

 zontal action of the sea has encroached far on the land, and 

 to the eastward of the castle has removed long lines of this 

 blown sand, and, but for its masonry embankment, that 

 edifice must long ago also have been washed away. The 

 observant traveller, sitting at very low tides on its south- 

 west end and looking westwards along the coast, would see 

 extended between the water's edge and the sandhills 

 behind, a rough dark expanse of shore, stretching towards 

 Hoylake village, which must arrest his attention and 

 induce him to visit it. From the embankment he would 

 walk along to Dove Point upon the sandhills, and descend 

 from them upon a bed of sandy pent, protruding from be- 

 neath its ii'olian covering, whose edge, denudated by the sea, 

 is about two feet in thickness. On the surface of this bed he 

 may, if he be alert and fortunate, collect Lymnaas and other 

 fresh-water shells, bones of deer, horse, and other recent 

 animals, as well as articles of Norman, Saxon, and Roman 

 manufacture, besides the flotsam and jetsam of the innu- 

 merable wrecks that since Roman times have been con- 

 tinually washed upon it. This soil-bed is evidently, he 

 w uld perceive, the last surface of the land before it was 

 covered by sand. His next descent would lead him upon 

 a bed of pent underlying the soil-bed ; and a foot lower he 

 would find himself traversing a ilay bed, through which, 

 where it has been denuded, another peaty suifaee comes in 

 view, with protruding stools, two to three feet in height, of 

 thiek forest trees — alder, willow, birch, elm, fir, and oak — 

 whose roots still spread down into the soil in which they grew, 

 their stems lying prostrate in all directions. There is no mis- 

 taking this for anything but a forest in ruins. Its denuded 

 edge measures about three feet in height, and Fig. 1, from 

 a photograph taken— as are all the others which illustrate 

 this paper — by !Mr. Charles A. Dcfieus, of Liverpool, affords 

 an excellent idea of its appearance. Another downward 

 step brings the investigator on a second layer of blue clay 

 some thirty inches in depth, overlying the peaty (^ //;/,< of a 

 /<)"■('.•• forest, whose fallen stems recline by the side of their 

 own still undisturbed stumps, whence the roots can be 

 traced stretching down, as when they lived, unto yet a 

 lower stratum of clay, in some places of red sand covering 

 the clay, full of pebbles and boulders inscribed with strire 

 that tell their own story. This lower forest bed has, 

 within the past thirty years, sulVered much by marine 

 denudation, and has quite vani.^^hod from many places 

 where it used to be distinctly visible. In Fig. 1 its site 

 would occupy the light triangular area in the centre of the 

 riglit-hand sicio of the illustration. 



Beneath the boulder clay are encountered no rocks 



