IN THE SUBMEEGED FOKEST OF TORBAY. 15 



It is worthy of remark that the spot in question forms the 

 natural point of discharge for water accumulating in the valley A B, 

 and that water-rolled gravel occurs in the clay, quite close to the 

 spot where the modern pipes F, which drain the low marshy land 

 of the valley, have been laid down. 



A word must now be said with regard to the position of these 

 various articles vertically in the clay. This, together with the Trias 

 ridge upon which it rests, has been greatly denuded within the 

 limits of the tidal strand. A number of truncated posts were 

 observed at J, and several of these were drawn. They consisted 

 of tree-stems, four or five inches in diameter, and roughly pointed ; 

 but, in no case did more than five or six inches of their original 

 length remain, proving that some feet of clay had been denuded since 

 the posts were driven. The wood of these piles had its larger vessels 

 threaded with the rootlets of other plants in exactly the same way 

 as the forest- wood itself, which, whether prostrate or erect, is always 

 interpenetrated by the roots of subsequent vegetation. The present 

 tidal strand has therefore been a land surface since the posts were 

 driven. 



The Trias ridge upon which the forest-clay rests has been pared 

 down pari passu with the latter, above which it projects only a 

 few inches. The clay thickens rapidly from its junction with the 

 Trias outwards, and is from three to four feet thick under the drain- 

 pipes P. Assuming that the piles were originally driven not less 

 than two feet into the clay, and bearing in mind that the objects on 

 the table were found nearer the junction than the drain-pipes, it is 

 probable that they occupied a position about midway between the 

 original surface and the bottom of the clay bed at this point. 



Reviewing the above facts, the conclusion seems inevitable that 

 tin was smelted and bronze probably made on the spot in question 

 at some time prior to the deposition of the forest-clays, and that the 

 land surface supporting this early metallurgical establishment was 

 the Trias rock. That the objects obtained from the clay were en- 

 tombed during its deposition, is shown by the fact of their inter- 

 penetration by the rootlets for which that claj^ subsequently formed 

 a soil ; and, unless work was carried on within a pile-dwelling, 

 the bronze-makers must have been antecedent in time to the forest- 

 clay. If the platform of cracked stones found seated upon the 

 " head " be accepted as the remains of a neighbouring smelting- 

 hearth, then there is no question but that the suggested sequence of 

 events is correct. Not only, then, was man living in Torbay at 

 some period prior to the deposition of the forest-clays, but he was 

 already acquainted with the art of smelting and a worker in copper 

 and tin — facts which allow no escape from the conclusion that the 

 soils in which the submerged forests of Torbay flourished were 

 deposited since the beginning of the bronze age in Britain. 



This, according to Dr. Evans, did not probably extend more than 

 twelve or fourteen centuries backwards from the commencement of 

 the Christian era, a period agreeing fairly well with M. Morlot's 

 well-known estimates, which give 3800 years as the present age of 



