110 Bay — Ancient Beach and Submerged Forest. 



round the headland called Cap Blanc-nez, for the purpose of ascer- 

 taining whether any traces of a similarly recent formation were to 

 be observed in the bay of Wissant, and that his search, as far as he 

 went, was fruitless; "but," he adds, "owing to the extent of the 

 dunes around Wissant, such a beach might be entirely hidden by the 

 sands." 



During a recent trip to this locality, I was more fortunate than 

 Mr. Prestwich, for after having first noticed the raised beach north 

 of Cap Blanc-nez, I met with what appeared to me to be a second 

 one beneath the Sand-dunes, above referred to, in the neighbovirhood 

 of Wissant ; and, still more hapjDily, I discovered, at low-water level 

 of the adjoining shore, a striking example of a ''submerged forest." 

 Unfortunately, however, for the reader of this article, I was at that 

 time unaware that these formations had escaped the notice of 

 Mr. Prestwich, and as I was also more particularly interested in the 

 examination of the underlying Secondary rocks, I did not pay such 

 attention to the details of the more recent deposits as they deserve 

 to have bestowed upon them. My object in laying the very scanty 

 notes that I did make before geologists, is therefore only to draw 

 their attention to the existence of these phenomena, and to suggest 

 further enquiry into their characters and into the conclusions to 

 which they seem to porat, so that others may be induced to supply 

 my deficiencies. 



Before describing the formation near Wissant, I must beg the 

 reader's attention to a few words uj)on that near Sangatte ; pre- 

 mising, however, that my own notes amount to a mere summary of 

 Mr. Prestwich' s most exact description. This recent accumulation 

 (Plate Am. Fig. II.) strikes the observer at once as consisting essen- 

 tially of three parts : a shingle-beach of well-rounded flints and frag- 

 ments of ferruginous sandstones ; a mass of Chalk-rubble ; and, thirdly, 

 an accumulation of angular flints. The raised beach (Fig. II. 6) rests 

 partly against a former cliff and partly upon a former sea-bed of 

 Ohalk, and at its most south-westerly extent it is situated about 12 

 or 15 feet above the present high- water level. From that elevation 

 it dips gradually in the direction of Sangatte, until it passes out of 

 sight beneath the shingle of the existing shore. The large well- 

 rounded flints which compose it are firmly cemented together in a 

 chalky matrix, and blocks of this conglomerate are to be seen 

 scattered on the beach. Eesting upon this shingle-bed is the mass 

 of chalky debris (Fig. II. 4) : many of the fragments of chalk are 

 more or less rounded either by gentle water-action or by long-con- 

 tinued exposure to the atmosphere during a period of very gradual 

 accumulation. Here and there in this I noticed collections of small 

 quartz gravel (4'), which seem to me to favour the idea that it is at 

 least partly of subaqueous origin. Somewhat nearer to Sangatte than 

 where the ancient beach disappears, green and brown sands (Fig. 

 II. 5), stratified in beds, one or two feet in thickness, occur below 

 the Chalk-rubble, and with these also I noted the presence of the 

 small quartz gravel. The junction of the sands with the shingle 

 below is concealed by the crumbling away of the loose beds above, 



