4 3 o PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



POSTGLACIAL AND RECENT DEPOSITS OF THE BRITISH 

 ISLANDS — Con tinned. 



Submerged forests of English coast — Unconformity between Glacial and Post- 

 glacial accumulations — Submarine forests of Lancashire and Cheshire — 

 Succession of deposits — General conclusions as to conditions of accumulation 

 — Postglacial and recent deposits of Cornish coast — Section of Happy Union 

 Works, Pentuan — Sections of Lower Pentewan "Work — Section at Huel Dar- 

 lington Mine — General conclusion as to the succession of changes — Sunk 

 forests and buried peat of the Fenland — Relation of Fen -beds to glacial 

 deposits — Character of Fen-beds — General conclusions as to conditions 

 under which they were accumulated. 



Submerged forests and peat occur at many places on the coasts 

 of England. They are most frequently met with on low 

 shelving shores where the land falls away with a gentle 

 declivity to the sea. Sometimes they are seen in section in 

 the low cliffs or banks of alluvial and detrital matter which 

 are washed by the water at high-tide ; in other places they 

 appear exposed upon the beach at low-tide, and pass outwards 

 for an unknown distance. Borings at various seaport towns 

 also prove the occurrence of similar land-surfaces, at depths of 

 over 40 feet below the present level of the sea. More than 

 this, submerged peat has been dredged off the coasts in 60 feet 

 of water, and it has been detected covering the sea-bottom in 

 the very middle of the English Channel. 



The phenomena of submerged forests are not confined to any 

 one part of England, but appear to be characteristic of all the 

 maritime regions, wherever the requisite conditions of a low 

 shelving shore obtain. They are found, for example, upon the 



