THE INSULATION OF ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT. 25 
extermination of at least the larger animals, it is well known 
that extinction did not result from convulsion, catastrophe, or 
sudden change; and that lowly organized. species are, as a whole, 
much less affected by changes in external conditions than are those- 
of complex organization. Hence, the value of what may be 
called the Life of a Species is by no means a constant quantity ; 
and there can be no & priori reason why, though the forests were 
composed of such plants as now exist in the same localities, the 
animals which found food and shelter in them may not have been, 
at least in some instances, extinct species. Indeed, an examina- 
tion of the ossiferous contents of the forests proves that this was 
the fact, for, to go no further, there have been found in the 
Torbay forest remains of the red deer (Cervus elaphus), wild hog 
(Sus scrofa), horse (Equus caballus) long-fronted ox (Bos longifrons ), 
and mammoth (Llephas primigenius)—the last, if not the last 
two, being certainly extinct. The evidence of the mammoth is a 
fine, adult, left, lower molar, dredged out of the peaty mass where 
there is never less than 30 feet of water. 
Remains of the same species were also discovered in 1849, in 
the submerged forest at Holyhead.* 
Though the era of the submergence was, as we have seen, 
certainly some thousands of years before our time, those who have 
kept themselves acquainted with the recent progress of Anthro- 
pology, will be prepared to hear that it took place since the 
advent of man in Britain. As long ago as 1829, Mr. Henwood 
recorded the discovery of human skulls in the forest at Carnon,t} 
and in 1852 an antler of a red deer, fashioned into a tool, was 
found nine feet deep in the Torbay forest, and at the same depth 
below spring-tide highwater. { 
The connexion of the forests, however, with the Antiquity of 
Man by no means ends here. They, ancient as they undoubtedly 
are, must be very modern in comparison with the men whose tools 
have been found in Windmill Cavern at Brixham, and Kent’s 
Cavern at Torquay. The entrances of these Caverns are in the 
sides of lime-stone hills, at a height 100 feet in the first case, 
* Lyell’s Principles of Geology, 10 Ed., Vol. I., p. 545. 1867. 
+ Op. cit. 
t See Trans. Devon Assoc., Vol. i, pt. iv, pp. 36-38. 1865. 
