South-western Coal District of England. 309 



clay extends beneath the peat, which forms the greater part of the present 

 surface of the marshes. 



The silty bottom occasionally passes into sand, which, from its natural 

 tendency to drift, has either been heaped into thick banks in the interior of 

 the marshes, or mixed with shingle has formed lines of beach at the foot of 

 the higher grounds. Such lines of beach may be traced along many parts of 

 the border of King's Sedgemoor, viz, at Sutton, Chedzoy, Weston Zoyland, 

 and Middle Zoy, of which places the three latter retain in the etymology of 

 their names the evidence of their former maritime position. Weston Zoy- 

 land and Chedzoy appear to have been low islets in the estuary of the Parret, 

 against which the sand has drifted, and a shingle-beach been thrown up. 

 These banks of sand and beaches of shingle are often protruded through and 

 rise above the level of the peat. We find in them rolled chalk-flints, and 

 fragments of the rocks prevailing in the neighbourhood ; so that we have 

 here a confirmation of the opinion previously advanced, that these ancient 

 estuaries have been the receptacles of the diluvian debris of the surrounding- 

 district. The clay has not been observed to contain shells ; the sand affords 

 them pretty abundantly, identical with the recent English species, and most of 

 them marine, though mixed in some instances with those of the land and 

 fresh water. The marine shells are found at the places just mentioned on 

 the borders of King's Sedgemoor, and in an insulated sand-bank at Burtle, in 

 the marshes of the Brue. In the excavations at Highbridge, near the mouth 

 of the Brue, this shelly sand lay beneath 3 or 4 yards of vegetable soil, and 

 in one place, where buried still deeper, it was covered immediately by a bed 

 of peat 2 feet thick. A similar sand extends beneath the argillaceous silt that 

 forms the surface around Huntspill ; it is very thick, and forms a quick-sand 

 full of water. The mixture of land-, fresh-water- and sea-shells above alluded 

 to may be seen at Chilton, one mile below Bridgewater. 



The peat which fills these estuaries is in many places 14 or 15 feet thick, 

 and is sometimes separated into two or more strata by partings of clay, each 

 about a foot thick. The common sedge, whence Sedgemoor derives its 

 name, enters largely into the composition of the peat. The peat is very loose 

 in texture, the water with which it is charged in wet seasons raising and (as 

 it were) floating it from off" the clay bottom on which, for the most part, it 

 rests ; and it is so porous, that some red marl, which Mr. Anstice spread over 

 it, became washed into its substance, and descended in a regular stratum suc- 

 cessively to greater depths. 



According to the Agricultural survey, trees of great dimensions, both of 

 oak, fir, and willow, have been discovered in these marshes, at the depth of 



