THE SUBMERGED FOREST. 67 



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- 

 fossilised bones of recent animals, devoured there by 

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

 thousand antlers of the reindeer were discovered. Such 

 facts can only be explained on the supposition that the 

 deer and oxen once roamed in the open valley beneath, 

 and were preyed on by the carnivores which haunted the 

 caverns. Every indication of the animals, the trees, and 

 the position of the deposits goes to show that this age 

 of forests extending far to seaward of the present coast 

 was subsequent to the date of the last glacial epoch, and 

 just preceded the final severance of England from the 

 Continent. In all probability the ancestors of the South 

 Welsh and of the small dark Celts of Scotland and 

 Ireland were already settled in Britain before that 

 severance took place. 



The forest beds now stretch to a depth of some forty 

 or even sixty feet below the present highest tidal level. 

 Accordingly, the subsidence of the land appears to have 

 been at least as much as sixty feet, and perhaps far 

 more : for the trees must, of course, have flourished on 

 the level of high-water mark, and possibly a good deal 

 above it. Moreover, shore forms of shell-fish are found 

 by dredging in similar old beds of recent but not of 

 modern date at considerable depths below the surface, 

 thus also showing a comparatively late subsidence of the 

 land. As these phenomena are not isolated, but occur 

 all round the coast of England, they probably mark a 

 general lowering of the land surface, rather than a mere 



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