18 D. PlDaEOIiT OJS RECENT DrSCOVEEIES 



lay in contact, one above the other, were unmistakably imbedded, 

 were full of fine vegetable debris, totally free from any admixture 

 of marine deposits, and were crushed flat by long-continued gentle 

 pressure. The metal of which they are composed has been found to con- 

 sist of 10 parts of tin to 1 part of lead, and they have been pronounced 

 by Mr. Eranks of the British Museum to be almost certainly Eoman. 

 The bed in which they were found is about 10 feet below high- 

 tide line, and vertically lower than the point at which the relics of 

 bronze-making man were discovered in the clay bed of the adjoining 

 inlet. This fact alone suggests the necessity of caution in coming to 

 conclusions on the general question of subsidence. 



Old maps of Torbay. such as those of Speed, dated 1610, Saxton, 

 1675, and Donne, 1765, demonstrate immense encroachments of 

 the sea in this neighbourhood during comparativelj" recent times. 

 The ordnance survey of 1809 shows that a road then traversed 

 Goodrington Sands where the tide now flows ; while the earher 

 surveyors whose names have been mentioned demonstrate a very 

 considerable seaward prolongation of the land in Torbay within 

 the last three centuries. There is little room to doubt that the 

 Eoman vases in question were lost in Goodrington Marsh at a time 

 when the beach which dammed its waters was far seaward of its 

 present position and of the spot where the vessels were found. 

 Since that time, the beach, receding before the advancing sea, has 

 passed over the vases, which the waves have, finally, disinterred 

 from the foreshore. 



The vertical position of the vessels, 10 feet below high-water 

 mark, may be explained by supposing that the fallen trees and vege- 

 table detritus, filling the Goodrington valley to a depth of at least 

 70 feet, formed a very compressible mass, and as this became gra- 

 dually consolidated, the reedy beds growing above the prostrate 

 forest gradually settled and carried any enclosed objects down 

 with them. 



The same bed of clay which underhes the forest on Preston Sands, 

 is also present at the same levels at G-oodrington, where, how- 

 ever, it is generally covered with sand and shingle. In the centre 

 of the bay there occurs a reef of Devonian shale, C, fig. 1, which is 

 covered at high, and exposed at low water. Upon either side of 

 this reef the clay reposes, just as it does upon the Trias reef 

 immediately below Eedcliffe Towers in the neighbouring bay. 

 Thence it dips rapidly on either hand, and is soon covered with a 

 thick layer of peaty matter, as is also the case on Preston Sands. 

 There is, however, nothing to show whether this bed of clay 

 passes continuously from the reef under the great depth of forest- 

 deposits which the Great-Western borings have shown to exist at 

 the lowest part of the Goodrington vaUey. 



With regard to the character of the forest-clays Mr. Godwin- 

 Austen*, writing in 1842, says that the submerged forest of Torbay 

 rests on lacustrine mud, which at Broad Sands contains shells of 

 Paludina impura in great abundance ; while at Goodrington also 

 * Trans. Geol. See. eer. 2, vol. vi. 



