W. A. E. Ussher — Historical Geology of Cornwall. 75 



thin layer of gravel or sand, is at spring-tide high-water, in still 

 weather, 12 feet below ; and at low- water 6 feet above the sea-level. 

 This ridge is dry in fine weather from four to five hours every tide, 

 but occasionally during storms and neap tides it is not passable for two 

 or three days." 



" St. Michael's Mount 1 was named in Cornish, as Carew informs us 

 ' Caraclowse in Cowse, in English, the hoare rock in the wood : 

 which now is at every flood encompassed by the sea, and yet at 

 some low ebbs, roots of mighty trees are descried in the sands 



about it.' Florence of Worcester expressly asserts that it 



was formerly five or six miles from the sea and enclosed with a very 

 thick wood ; and therefore called in British, Carreg lug en Kug, 

 ' Le Hore Rok in the wodd.' " 



The above is said to have been corrected by Florence of Worcester 

 in a letter to William of Worcester, 1478. 2 



Mr. Peacock 3 thinks that we need not go back further than the 

 time of the Domesday Book for the origin of the Cornish name of 

 St. Michael's Mount, " Carreg coedh yn clos," i.e. " Bock of the wood 

 in the enclosure," as William Camden (1550-1623) "proves that 

 the Cornish language had not become quite extinct even so lately as 

 his time." 



" Dr. Gibson, 4 the editor of Camden's Britannia, says that St. 

 Michael's Mount is called Careg Cowse in Clowse. Careg is, doubt- 

 less, the origin of the English word crag ; and cowse is said to mean 

 cana, white ; and clowse obviously means a close or enclosure." 



" Mr. Metivier says that St. Michael's Mount was ' Carreg Coed 

 yn Clos,' rock of the wood in the enclosure." 



Mr. Peacock 5 says that " the earliest period at which the Saxon 

 name Mychel Stop, or Michael's Step, could have been given to the 

 Mount, was after the landing of Hengist and Horsa in 449." 



The Mount received its present name in 1085, from the Monastery 

 of St. Michael, of which it then became an appanage ; before that 

 time it was called Dinsol. 6 



" In Milner's Gallery of Nature, p. 387, it is stated that in the 

 time of Edward the Confessor, 1044, the rock of St. Michael's 

 Mount was the site of a monastery described as being near the sea, 

 'juxta mare' (interpreted by Barham, 'by the sea'). " 



" The ancient designation," says Mr. Pengelly, "betokens a change 

 in the geography of the district — a change, not only within the human 

 period, but since Cornwall was occupied by a people who spoke the 

 language which was tardily supplanted by the Anglo-Saxon." 



Mr. Pengelly refers the name " Hogus," now applied to the rocky 

 ledge between Marazion and the Mount, to an old Scandinavian 

 derivation, meaning " a rock in or near a wood adjacent to water, 

 and used for sacrificial purposes." 



Mr. Peacock 7 takes exception to this determination on the ground 

 that Hogus (in Guernsey hougue, French hogue, neo-Latin hoga) 



1 T. P. G. S. Corn., vol. ii. p. 134. 



2 Pengelly on Submerged Forests in Torbay. 3 Peacock, p. 110. 



4 Ibid. p. 89. B p. 111. 6 ibid. p. 112. 7 Peacock, p. 107. 



