32 W. A. E. TJssher — Historical Geology of Cormcall. 



Mem. relatifs a la Marine (a.d. 1800), "La submersion du terrain 

 . . . et de la pointe ouest de l'Angleterre. ix." (commencement of 

 ninth century), quoted by Mr. Peacock in p. 88 of his book, must be 

 laid out of the question. 



Secondly. All statements made by writers who lived long after the 

 occurrences they describe must be accepted with reservation, as they 

 may have been derived from the contemporary record of the 

 occurrence, and cannot, therefore, be said to furnish additional 

 evidence. Thus with Florence of Worcester, who wrote in the 

 thirteenth century. 



Thirdly. Taking the Saxon Chronicle as the only direct con- 

 temporary account of the inundations of the eleventh century, one 

 would like to know whether the descriptions there given were penned 

 by an eye-witness of the catastrophe, or inserted from rumours which 

 would doubtless have magnified the disaster ere they reached the 

 chronicler. 



Fourthly. Admitting Mr. Peacock's reason for the omission of 

 remarkable events here and there by the chroniclers generally, I 

 cannot see their particular application to Geoffery of Monmouth, 

 who flourished in the twelfth century, and would therefore have less 

 excuse for omitting to mention events, which had been witnessed 

 by the generations immediately preceding him, than Florence of 

 Worcester, who lived more than three centuries after they had occurred. 

 For these reasons I am disinclined to believe in sudden elevations or 

 depressions of land, and to consider that, owing to some such dis- 

 turbances as I have quoted from Mr. Edmonds, though perhaps of 

 greater magnitude, lives may have been lost and lands devastated by 

 the influx of waves propagated by earthquake shocks, and by seasons 

 of unprecedented flood. That the effects produced would be partial 

 or transient, whilst the story of the disaster for which men could 

 assign no cause would be magnified as it passed from the eye- 

 witnesses of the catastrophe to their descendants, and finally, with 

 many interpolations and distortions, live as a local tradition with 

 perhaps very little of its original significance remaining. 



Part 3. — Traditions of the Lyonesse, &c. 



The following information is chiefly extracted from Mr. Peacock's 

 book : — 



"It is said that in Camden's time the inhabitants of Cornwall 

 were of opinion that the Land's End did once extend further to the 

 west, which the seamen positively conclude from the rubbish 

 they draw up, and that the land there drowned by the incursions of 

 the sea was called Lionesse. That a place within the Seven Stones 

 is called by the Cornish people Trevga (i.e. a dwelling), and that 

 windows and other such stuff have been brought up from the bottom 

 there with fish-hooks, for it is the best place for fishing. That at 

 the time of inundation supposed Trevelyan swam from thence (at 

 least 15 nautical miles to the nearest part of the mainland) and in 

 memory thereof bears Gules, an horse Argent issuing out of the sea 

 proper." (Vide Note A.) 



