StTBMARINE FOREST-BED. 311 



lines west and east of the Irish Sea similar deposits are found, 

 and northward even to the Orkney Isles. Again they are found 

 on the whole of the eastern coasts of Scotland and England, and 

 along the Continental shores from the north of Denmark to the 

 western extremity of France. 



But the European extent of this submerged vegetation is 

 generally exceeded by that along the whole coast line of northern 

 Asia, extending from the Gulf of Obi to Behring Straits, more 

 particularly at the mouths of the main rivers where beds of 

 of vegetable matter are interstratified with alluvial deposits of 

 sand and clay, and carcases of buried Mammoths and other 

 animals often preserved perfect and entire in the permanently 

 frozen ground,'^' so perfect that dogs, wolves, and bears have 

 eaten the flesh of the mammoth, and the tusks of the mammoth 

 are so abundant as to form a productive branch of traffic. It 

 has been calculated that not less than 110,000 lbs. of fossil ivory 

 goes to market every year, so that during the last 20 years the 

 tusks of 20,000 mammoths have been thus utilized.f 



The submerged beds rise inland and mingle with the decayed 

 vegetation of the barren Tundra. " The fox hunters hold that 

 when the sea recedes after a long continuance of easterly winds, 

 a fresh supjDly of mammoth bones are washed up on the banks, 

 proceeding apparently from some vast store at the bottom of the 

 sea."+ 



For the origin of such an overwhelming and extensive 

 catastrophy we must look for an adequate cause, the solution of 

 which may probably be best unravelled by the study of our iron 

 bound coast line, and explorations of the Cornish valleys 

 by the workings for stream tin. 



It is obvious that these forest-beds were deposited after the 

 rock-bound shore line of Cornwall had received its present out- 

 line, and after the land had been rasped down to its present 

 gracefully curved surface at the glacial age, and also, after that 

 surface had been adorned by a profusion of timber, with a 

 climate somewhat similar to that of the present. That in fact 



*Lyeirs Principles of Geology, Vol. 1, p. 184. 

 fThe Mammotli and The Flood, p. 52. 

 jibid. p. 54. 



