308 W. A. E. Ussher — Pleistocene Geology of Cornwall 



from the destruction of a continuous band of granite between 

 Mousehole and Cudden Point. 



The original length of the Green (op. cit. vol. ii. p. 136) "was 

 about three miles on the east and one mile on the west of Penzance ; 

 and is already much shortened. The ancient breadth is unknown." 

 The West Green contained but two or three acres, and in no place 

 exceeded 130 feet in width, when Dr. Boase wrote (op. cit. vol. iii. 

 p. 131, etc.) ; whilst in Charles the Second's time it is mentioned in 

 a letter to Mrs. Ley, of Penzance, as affording 36 acres of pasturage. 



b. Mr. Edmonds (Edin. New. Phil. Journ. vol. xlv. p. 113, for 

 1848) mentions the following facts. Seventy years ago a meadow 

 lay outside the present sea-wall at the entrance to Newlyn ; several 

 houses and gardens stood on the seaward side of the cottages at 

 Sandy Bank in Penzance ; these extremities of the old Western 

 Green are no longer visible. 



In 1843 a sea-wall was built by the Corporation of Penzance to 

 protect the remainder of the sand bank. Off the eastern bank 

 numerous rocks between high- and low- water mark, below both sand 

 banks, near Newlyn, Chyandower, and Marazion, buried beneath 

 4 to 5 feet of sand 40 years previous to 1848, were uncovered. 



c. In the sand bank between Penzance and Marazion, near 

 Marazion Bridge, Mr. Edmonds discovered a great number of land 

 shells (Helix virgata and Bulimus acutus), in perfect preservation, 

 throughout a depth of about 10 feet from the surface. In one 

 instance, in the same locality, he observed a layer of small rounded 

 pebbles, an inch or two in thickness, 3 feet below the surface of 

 the sand, and more than 15 feet above the level of high-water. In 

 the subjacent sand, for 4 or o feet in depth, he found numerous 

 perfect land shells. 



7 a. Whitesand Bay, to the North of Sennen Cove, is bounded by 

 sand dunes, capping the low cliffs, and extending for a little distance 

 inland, surrounded by higher ground. 



b. On the north side of Cape Cornwall rock platforms are visible 

 at about high-water mark, the traces of raised beach adjacent are 

 about 6 feet above that level. 



8. Lelant, Phillack, and Gwythian Towans. 



"The Cornish word 'Towyn,' says Mr. Edwards (T.E.G.S. Corn, 

 vol. vi. pp. 300-304), means 'a turfy down,' the word 'down' being 

 perhaps a mere corruption of ' towyn ' by the very common change 

 of the letter t into d ; and it is remarkable that the name ' Les 

 Landes,' 'barren heaths,' given to the sandy districts on the S.W. 

 coast of France, is almost precisely the same with ' Lelant,' the 

 parish in the Towans where an ancient market town is said to have 

 been buried by the sand. Hence Towans, Downs, Lelant, and Les 

 Landes may all be regarded as synonymous." 



In the same paper he characterizes the blown sands of St. Ives 

 Bay as accumulations of comminuted shell sand nourishing a scanty 

 growth of Arundo arenaria. 



a. North of Hayle and west of Phillack an excavation of about 

 30 feet, at the termination of a tramway, afforded me a good section 



