382 
NATURE 
[ Fed. 10, 1870 
prove that at the bay of Mont Saint-Michel the coast 
has been submerged within a period subsequent to the 
Roman domination. Rouault, Curé de Saint-Pair, says :— 
“ About the year 400 there was in the Basse Normandie 
towards the west a large forest named Scicy, extending 
from the rocks of Chausey to the Mont de Tomba”—now 
Mont Saint-Michel. In the twelfth century the trou- 
badour Guillaume de Saint-Pari referred to this submerged 
forest in a quaint bit of old French, which may be freely 
translated thus :-— 
‘*Not far from Avranches, on Brittany’s shore, 
Quokelonde forest spread out of yore ; 
But that famous stretch of fertile land 
Is hidden now by the sea and the sand, 
No more will its venison grace the dish— 
The ancient forest yields nought but fish.” 
This forest of Scicy, or Scissiacum, was said to have 
been full of wild beasts—“ prasbens altissima latibula 
ferarum”—and peopled by half-savage natives, to whom 
succeeded, in Christian times, a number of Anchorites 
who sought retirement there, far from the tumult of the 
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lette have disappeared beneath the waves since the 13th 
The parishes of St. Louis, Mauny and La Feuil- 
century. A story is told of a priest of the diocese of 
Dol, that, having in 1685, learned by tradition that there 
was formerly, in the place then (and now) occupied by 
the sea,a parish named St. Louis, informed the Court 
of Rome that this living was vacant “per obztum.” Upon 
this they consulted the registers and found actually that 
there had been presentations to this living by former Popes. 
A priest of Basse-Bretagne was therefore appointed and 
he departed at once to take possession. But on arriving 
in sight of Mont Saint-Michel, what was his surprise 
when he was shown on the sands and in the sea, the place 
where was formerly situated his pretended parish. 
There is every reason to believe that the whole of the 
Channel Islands were, at one time, part of the mainland 
of France and there is positive proof of the island of 
Jersey having been so. There are certain existing manu- 
scripts belonging to the monastery of Mont Saint-Michel, 
which tell us that, in the sixth century, the district of Jersey 
was separated from the mainland of Coutances by only 
a narrow rivulet, bridged by a single plank which the 
inhabitants were bound to keep in repair for the Arch- 
deacon of the mother church to pass over on his periodical 
visitations. In the register of the taxes of the island, 
there is an entry referring to rents received from various 
persons for the privilege of allowing pigs to feed on the 
acorns in the forest of St. Ouen—now the bay of that 
name—but, M. Quenault’s informant adds rather un- 
necessarily, “elles ne sont plus payées aujourd’hui !” 
There are also many other manuscripts quoted and 
instances given of the great alteration that has taken 
place in the outline of the Channel Islands and the coasts 
of France, of which there is given an exceedingly in- 
teresting map by M. Deschamps-Vadeville—a facsimile 
of a chart copied in the year 1406 from one of a much 
older date. This map, which we reproduce in miniature, 
shows the coast line from Cape Finisterre down to St. 
Malo to have been, at that time, from six to twelve 
miles farther west than at present. The island of 
Jersey is part of a peninsula, ten or twelve miles wide, 
stretching out from the French coast to a point some 
three or four miles west of that island as it at present 
exists. Guernsey also is shown to have then been con- 
siderably larger than the Isle of Man now is. Through- 
out the whole area of this departed coast, are depicted the 
positions of some score of places where evidences of the 
existence of submerged forests have been discovered. 
The sinking of the land which has taken place within 
the periods of history, has occurred only between the 
parallels of 10° S. and 55° N. lat. North of this, it is 
gradually becoming more and more elevated. Of this 
phenomenon M. Quenault gives an equally interesting and 
detailed account, with numerous facts and voluminous 
evidence which cannot be recounted within the limits of 
the present article. M. Quenault concludes—with regard 
to the depression of the land—* One gathers from all these 
evidences, that the movement, since the eighth century, 
has been about two metres a century. If it continues at 
the same rate for ten centuries more, the peninsula of 
Cotentin will be an island and all the ports of La Manche 
will be destroyed. Some centuries later and Paris will be 
a seaport, waiting only to be submerged in a score of 
centuries, Thus ina period, less than half as long as that 
during which the pyramids of Egypt have braved theravages 
of time, Paris itself—if it is not burned down during 
one of the revolutions of its inhabitants, as amiable and 
spirituel as they are inconsistent—Paris will probably be 
engulphed in the Atlantic, a master before whom the 
intractable Parisian must haul down his flag. Let him 
take warning!” 
CHARLES W. WHITAKER 
MICROSCOPICAL INVESTIGATION OF 
METEORITES 
A PAPER on the above subject, forming part of an investi- 
gation commenced two-and-a-half years ago by its author, 
Prof. Maskelyne, of the British Museum, was read at a recent 
meeting of the Royal Society. We are indebted to the author for 
enabling us to lay before our readers the following full abstract 
of the paper :-— 
With a view to obtain some more satisfactory means of 
dealing with the aggregates of mixed and minute minerals, 
which constitute meteoric rock, the author sought the aid 
of the microscope, having in the first place sections of small 
fragments cut from the meteorites so as to be transparent. 
By studying and comparing such sections, one learns that a 
meteorite has passed through changes and that it has had 
a history of which some of the facts are written in legible 
characters on the meteorite itself and, one finds, that it is not 
difficult roughly to classify meteorites according to the varieties 
of their structure. One also recognises constantly recurring 
minerals; but the method affords no means of determining 
what these are. Even the employment of polarised light, 
so invaluable where a crystal of which the crystallographic 
