252 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. vm. 



country when the land stretched farther out to sea than 

 at the present time. In this particular case Mr. Pen- 

 gelly estimates the submergence to have been not less 

 than forty feet since the forest was alive. 



Similar proofs of submergence are to be met with on 

 our coasts wherever the land dips gently under the 

 water line. On the shores of St. Bride's Bay, in the 

 twelfth century, the stumps of trees, and the peat 

 around them at low water, excited the wonder of Gerald 

 de Barri, 1 and yielded to Dr. Hicks, in 1868, the 

 remains of the brown bear and the stag. From this 

 point the forest has been observed in very many places 

 farther north, at Liverpool, and on the coast of Lanca- 

 shire. In the latter district it has been shown by Mr. 

 De Eance to be older than the Roman occupation, 

 since Roman coins were discovered in the tidal alluvium, 



1 " From Haverford we proceeded on our journey to Menevia, distant 

 from thence about 12 miles, and passed through Camros, where, in the 

 reign of K. Stephen, the relatives and friends of a distinguished young 

 man, Geraldus, son of William, revenged his death by a too severe re- 

 taliation on the men of Ros. We then passed over Niwegal sands, at which 

 place, during the winter that K. Henry the Second spent in Ireland 

 (as well as in almost all the other western ports), a very remarkable 

 circumstance occurred. The sandy shores of South Wales being laid bare 

 by the extraordinary violence of a storm, the surface of the earth which 

 had been covered for many ages reappeared, and discovered the trunks 

 of trees cut off, standing in the sea itself, the strokes of the hatchet appear- 

 ing as if only made yesterday ; the soil was very black and the wood like 

 ebony ; by a wonderful revolution the road for ships became impassable, 

 and looked not like a shore but like a grove cut down perhaps at the time 

 of the deluge, or not long after, but certainly in very remote times, being 

 by degrees consumed and swallowed up by the violence and encroachments 

 of the sea. During the same tempest many sea-fish were driven by the 

 violence of the wind and waves upon dry land. We were well lodged at 

 S. Davids by Peter, Bishop of the See, a liberal man, who had hitherto 

 accompanied us during the whole of our journey." Itinerarium Cambrice. 

 Book i. cap. 13. 



