W. A. E. ZTssher — Historical Geology of Cornwall. 77 



From Mr. Pengelly's statement that the Mount 1900 years ago 

 possessed a harbour, Mr. Peacock dissents on the ground that " if 

 the coast had remained unaltered ever since Diodorus's time, the 

 Koman tin -transporting ships need not by any means have been 

 confined to St. Michael's Mount as a harbour, because, as the Eev. 

 W. Borlase 1 well observes, Guavas Lake is the principal anchoring 

 place." Whence he considers that the chief export of tin could not 

 have taken place from St. Michael's Mount, and does not favour the 

 belief in its identification as the Ictis of Diodorus. He says further: 2 

 "The ancient block of tin which was dredged up about 1823 in 

 Falmouth Harbour (Lyell's Principles of Geology, 1867, p. 451), if 

 we suppose it to have been dropped during its transit to the Isle of 

 Ictis, would seem to place Ictis opposite Falmouth harbour, and 

 therefore twenty miles east of St. Michael's Mount." 



Mr. Pengelly, in a lecture at the Eoyal Institution, 3 says, " The 

 Mount is by no means a solitary rock of its kind. Within seventy 

 miles east of it there are certainly four that actually are or probably 

 were, within the last 1900 years, precisely similar though slightly 

 larger islands — Looe Island, St. Nicholas Island, the Mewstone, and 

 Borough Island." 



Mr. Peacock cherishes the idea that the Mounts Bay foi-est was 

 submerged in the historic period, and is sufficient confirmation of the 

 "tradition of these parts that St. Michael's Mount, now enclosed half 

 a mile with the sea, when the tide is in, stood formerly in a wood." 



He quotes the following note from Carew (1602) : 4 "Tradition 

 tells us that in former ages the Mount was part of the insular 

 continent in Britain, and disjoined from it by an inundation or en- 

 croachment of the sea, some earthquake or terrestrial concussion." 



"If," says Mr. Peacock, 5 "the storm of 1099 and Dr. Borlase's 

 submersion 6 in the ninth century be true, St. Michael's Mount 

 cannot have been the ancient isle of Ictis, because must we not 

 suppose that the Mount only became an island at one of these 

 submersions." Mr. Peacock strengthens his position by the following 

 quotation 7 from page 2 of the Domesday Book: "The land of 

 Michael . . . there are two hides which never paid the Danish tax 

 (nunquam geldaverunt). The land is eight caracutes." 



The hide is generally supposed to be equal to 120 acres. 8 Sir. H. 

 Ellis says that the measure of a hide varied in different places at 

 different times. " The carucate was as much arable land as could be 

 managed with one plough and the beasts belonging thereto in a year; 

 having meadow, pasture, and houses for the householders and cattle 

 belonging to it." 



Taking the smallest estimate of a " hide " from the five different 

 measures of it in the reigns of Kichard I., Edward I., and Edward II., 



1 Phil. Trans, vol. 48. 2 Peacock, p. 118. 



3 Quoted by Peacock, p. 139. 4 p. 140. 5 Peacock, p. 88. 



6 Dr. Borlase was inclined to refer the submersion of St. Michael's Wood to the 

 inundation of the year 830, mentioned in Irish Annals. Mr. Whitaker ascribed it to 

 that mentioned by the Saxon Chronicle and Florence of Worcester as occurring in 

 1099. Vide T. R. G. S. Corn., vol. ii. p. 139. 



7 lb. p. 137. 8 lb. p. 113. 



