THE INSULATION OF ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT. 19 
Mount in this description. It occupies the position and possesses 
all the peculiar characteristics mentioned ; it was capable, and 
must have been the only spot in the district that was capable, of 
affording the requisite shelter; it is in the very midst of the most 
productive tin country ;* and besides it there is no other semi- 
island to which the author can be supposed to have referred. 
Nevertheless, many writers, so far from concurring in this view, 
have advocated the pretensions of other spots, such as one of the 
Scilly Isles, the Wolf Rock, the Black Rock at the entrance of 
Falmouth harbour, St. Nicholas or Drake’s Island in Plymouth 
Sound, and even the Isle of Wight. Time will not allow me here 
toreply to the objections which have been urged against the 
Mount, nor to dispose of the numerous pretenders. Indeed, it 
cannot be necessary to do either, as little can be added to the 
well-known paper on the question by Dr. T. F. Barham.{ It is, 
perhaps, worthy of remark, however, that those who have studied 
the Geology of Cornwall espouse the cause of the Mount, whilst 
most of those who fail to do so appear to have come to the ques- 
tion with their minds imbued with a belief in William of Wor- 
cester’s statement that there were 140 parish churches submerged 
between the Mount and Scilly, and accordingly hold that the sub- 
mergence took place, not only since the time of Diodorus, but 
since the introduction of the parochial system into Cornwall. 
It has been already stated that Professor Max Miller holds 
the Mount to have been the Iktis, and that his admiring critic in 
the Saturday Review demurs to his doing so. The latter remarks, 
“We should like to know Professor Miiller’s authority for the 
statement that the identification of the Iktis of Diodorus with St. 
Michael’s Mount ‘was at last admitted even by the late Sir G. C. 
Lewis.’ We are specially anxious on this point, as it was the argu- 
ment of Sir George Lewis in the Astronomy of the Ancients which 
first convinced us that the Iktis of Diodorus was not St. Michael’s 
Mount.”+ The so called argument of Sir G. C. Lewis is contained 
in the following passage :—“ Timzus mentions an island of Mictis, 
within six days sail of Britain, which produced tin, and to which 
* See Dr. Smith’s Cassiterides, p.114. 1863. 
} See Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. of Cornwall, vol. ili, p. 86, et seq, 1825. 
Also Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. 11, pp. 142-55. 1867. 
t p. 56. 
