W. A. E. Ussher — Historical Geology of Cornwall. 31 



the record of such cataclysms in early historic or mediaeval times 

 would refer to their disastrous effects, want of knowledge and 

 observation leaving the causes unknown, the recent prehistoric 

 geological period conceals them in an impenetrable veil. 



Part 2. — Becords of Disastrous Inundations. 



I quote the following from Mr. Peacock's book (On Vast Sinkings 

 of Land, etc.) : — 



p. 116. " Dr. Barham quotes from the Saxon Chronicle, par- 

 ticulars of the inundation of Nov. 11th, 1099 ; and of another on 

 the same authority in 1014. This year (1014) on Michaelmas Eve, 

 Sept. 28th, came the great sea-flood which spread over this land, 

 and ran up as far as it never did before, overwhelming many towns 

 and an innumerable multitude of people." 



p. 115. An account of a destructive inundation 13 years after 

 the Domesday Survey, by Florence of Worcester ; " On the 3rd day 

 of the Nones of November 1099, the sea came out upon the shore, 

 and buried towns and men very many, and oxen and sheep 

 innumerable." From the Saxon Chronicle for that year, " On St. 

 Martin's mass day, the 11th Nov., sprung up so much of the sea- 

 flood, and so myckle harm did, as no man minded that it ever afore 

 did, and there was the ilk day a new moon." " Whence," says Mr. 

 Peacock, " the catastrophes cannot be referred to the great height 

 of the tide, for the highest spring-tides do not occur until several 

 tides after the new moon, and the 11th of November is several 

 weeks after the equinox." 



p. 138. Mr. Peacock accounts for Geoffery of Monmouth's 

 omission of the mention of the inundations of 1014 and 1099, on 

 the ground that the chroniclers very often omitted to record the 

 actual disappearances of lands. 



In p. 140 he quotes from Mr. Pengelly's paper on the Antiquity 

 of Man in the South-West of England : " Leland (1533-1540) says, 

 ' Ther hath been much land devourid betwixt Pensandes and Mouse- 

 hole. Ther is an old legend a Tounlet in this Part (now 



defaced and) lying under the water.' " 



In p. 141 he gives a reference to Mounts Bay from Magna 

 Britannia published anonymously in 1722 (vol. i. p. 308) : "'Tis a 

 tradition among the people here, that the ocean breaking in violently, 

 drowned that part of the country which now is the Bay." Mr. 

 Peacock disposes of the idea that the catastrophes of 1014 and 

 1099 might have been the result of similar movements to those 

 "which occurred on the South Coast of England in 1817, 1824, and 

 1859, at a considerable distance of time from either equinox," on 

 account of the unprecedented harm done by them, and the in- 

 adequacy of such high tides as those mentioned to produce com- 

 mensurate effects. 



Notwithstanding, I am inclined to differ from Mr. Peacock in this 

 conclusion for the following reasons : — 



Firstly. Such traditional accounts as those of Leland and the 

 Magna Britannia, and the statement of Vice- Admiral Thevenard in 



