THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE III. VOL. 11. 



Ho. IV.— APRIL, 1885. 



oiiiC3-insrj^Xi j^iRTiGnLEs. 



I. — Oscillations of Level along our South Coast since the 



Human Period. 



By J. Starkie Gardner, F.L.S., F.G.S. 



IN the latest number of the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society there is a description by Mr. D. Pigeon, F.G.S., of 

 recent discoveries in the submerged Forest of Torbay. The paper 

 is highly interesting, and records many facts, valuable alike to the 

 geologist and archasologist. But the inferences he draws from 

 them in opposition to Mr. Peiigelly, though not altogether un- 

 challenged in the discussion of his paper, were not contradicted as 

 emphatically as they might have been. As I take interest in, and 

 have observed signs of upheaval and depression along our coast-line, 

 and believe that scarcely any part of the coast is at rest, I beg leave 

 to protest against this latest of several attempts to show, that remains 

 of forests, now beneath the sea-level, originally grew at the levels they 

 now occupy. We know that it is possible that forests might grow at 

 a lower level than the sea until a protecting dam gave way and they 

 became overwhelmed; but I would ask whether there is any example 

 of such growing anywhere round the coasts of Great Britain to-day, 

 and whether there is anything to lead to the belief that there were, 

 at the epochs of these submerged forests, any physical conditions that 

 rendered it more probable that forests might have grown below high- 

 water mark along the coasts, then than now. To admit that there 

 were, would admit a change of some kind, presumably of level, 

 which is what I maintain. My own idea is that the physiography, of 

 the south coast at least, is entirely opposed to the growth of forests 

 behind dykes below the sea-level, and that the only probable ex- 

 planation of their present position is a subsidence of the area on 

 which they gi-ew. Tliis seems so self-evident that I should hardly 

 have thought any other view could have been supported. The con- 

 clusion I take most particular exception to is this : " That a coast 

 which has remained stationary for the last 2000 years should have 

 made such active use of the preceding twelve or twenty centuries for 

 the purposes of oscillation, is rather hard of belief." In the first 

 place there is no sort of evidence that the coast was stationary for 

 2000 years, and in the second, were it so, it would not present any 

 reason to my mind why evidence of the occurrence of oscillations in 

 the 2000 years preceding should be rejected. 



Whether Dr. Barbara has conclusively established the identity of 



DECADE III. VOL. II. — NO. lY. 10 



