Cii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [ ^lay 1904, 



change of level has long "been known. The evidence was collected 

 and discussed by William Pengelly in the papers above cited (p. xcv). 

 He inferred, from the position of the sunk forests along the Cornish 

 coast, that this region had been submerged to the extent of at least 

 67 feet since the time when these forests existed as land-surfaces. 



Further proofs of the eastward extension of this submergence 

 have more recently been revealed, during the extensive excavations 

 for new dock-accommodation at Southampton. A bed of peat, 10 feet 

 thick, has there been found, descending to a depth of 43 feet 

 below Ordnance- datum. This vegetable accumulation has yielded 

 many land- and freshwater-shells ; abundant trunks of oak with 

 roots, sometimes 2 feet long, passing down into the loam beneath ; 

 plentiful remains of beech and hazel, together with some birch and 

 pine. The plants also included bulrush, sedge, bog-myrtle, heaths, 

 and bracken. From this bed, bones, horn-cores, and part of the 

 skull of Bos primigenius were obtained ; likewise horns and bones 

 of red deer, tusk of boar, bones of hare, and horn of reindeer. 

 Traces of man were found in the same deposit, as shown by the 

 occurrence of dark flint-flakes, a round perforated hammer-stone, 

 .and a fine bone-needle polished by use. 1 



There is thus evidence of a comparatively-recent submergence 

 of the South-West of England, to the extent of at least 50 or 60 feet. 

 We are probably justified in considering the present position of the 

 Glacial raised beach in Gower as a further indication of the same 

 movement, and there seems no reason why we should not connect 

 the evidence of this beach with that of the terrace lately detected in 

 Cork. If these tracts are included in our survey, we see that the 

 submergence probably stretched across South Wales and St. George's 

 Channel to the South of Ireland. The evidence from Hull and 

 Grimsby, which shows that a similar marked submergence has taken 

 place along part of the East Coast, not improbably indicates that the 

 change of level extended across Wales and the centre of England. 

 This submergence appears to be the latest in the long series of 

 oscillations which have affected the southern portions of our islands. 

 No proof has yet been obtained that so serious an amount of recent 

 submergence has extended farther north. In the northern tracts 

 the latest recorded change of level has been an emergence of the 

 land in Neolithic time. 



1 T. W. Shore & J. W. Elwes, Papers & Proceedings of the Hampshire 

 Field-Club, no. iii (1889) p. 43. The history of recent submergences along 

 this coast-line is sketched by Mr. Shore, in a paper on ' Hampshire Mudlands 

 & other Alluviums' ibid. vol. ii (1894) p. 181. 



