wxiv PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



But while the land has been encroaching on the sea in some places, the incessant action 

 of the waves has been wearing away the land in others. Many ancient camps which 

 were occupied by the Romans, on exposed portions of the sea-coast, have been partially 

 destroyed, as, for instance; at Newhaven, and the long, low-lying tract of land which 

 extends past Bognor and Selsea, in the direction of Portsmouth, is being swept away at 

 the rate, at the very least, of one foot per annum along the whole coast-line. 1 There 

 seems to have been no change of level since the historical period in the south part of 

 Britain. The Roman road, discovered by Mr. Oliver, passing from Middlezoy, in 

 Somersetshire, to the Polden Hills, was made after the morass, which it crosses, had 

 assumed its present relation to the sea-level. The submerged forest which now excites 

 the wonder of the Welsh peasants, and which probably was the sole foundation of the 

 story of the lost lands of Wales, was noticed at its present level by Giraldus Cambrensis 

 when he was gathering recruits for the first crusade. 2 



In Scotland Prof. Geikie has argued that the land has been elevated to a height 

 of about twenty-five feet above the present level of the sea since the wall of Anto- 

 ninus was built to keep out the Pictish and Scotish marauders. The wall runs from 

 Carriden, on the Firth of Forth, to Chapel Hill, on the Firth of Clyde, leaving unprotected 

 a space at either end, between its termination and the present sea-level, which would be 

 defended by the sea were the land depressed to the extent of about twenty-five feet. 

 Prof. Geikie therefore infers that it was so defended at either end at the time when it 

 was planned by the Roman engineers. He also cites in favour of this view the raised 

 mud-banks and ancient harbours, such as the carse of Stirling and the old Roman 

 harbour of Cramond, 3 which are now above the mean sea-level. The recent discoveries, 

 however, of a Roman road running across the carse of Stirling, defended by a fort, and of 

 a tablet in situ bearing an inscription commemorating the completion of part of the 

 wall at Bowness, Linlithgowshire, at a height of nineteen feet above the sea, negatives the 

 conclusion, as Sir Charles Lyell points out in the 4th edit, of the ' Antiquity of Man/ 

 p. 56. 



The presence of the reindeer in Scotland as late as the middle of the twelfth century 

 implies that between that time and the present the climate has become warmer. 



' This estimate is rather under than over the truth. When the writer was surveying this district 

 in 1865 the land was being torn away by the current passing out of Pagham Harbour at an 

 alarming rate, and the section offered by the low cliff varied every day. Probably before the end of the 

 present century the fine old church at Pagham will share the fate of the old church at Selsea. 



2 'Itinerarium Cambrise,' book 1. 



3 'Edinburgh New Phil. Journ., July, 1861. 



