10 . D. PIDGEOX OX EECEXT DISCOYEEIES 



*■ 



4. That the successive changes of level were, at least, tolerably 

 uniform and were effected gradually. 



The relics of man hitherto discovered in the submerged forest of 

 Torbay are veiy^ few. They consist of two horns of red deer, found 

 by Mr. Ardley in 1852, which exhibit undoubted marks of human 

 workmanship, and of a single flint implement found by Mr. Watson, 

 on Torre-Abbey sands, in 1883 *. Both of these finds have been 

 fully described by Mr. Pengelly, and they sufficiently demonstrate 

 that man must have witnessed that submergence of the forest area 

 for which this author contends, while at the same time they raise 

 the interesting question whether this submergence took place since 

 or before the period of authentic historj^ 



It has been considered a sufficient answer to say that Dr. Barham 

 of Truro, in a paper read in 182-5 t, has fully established the identity 

 of St. Michael's Mount, near Penzance, with the Ictis of Diodorus 

 Siculus, who, writing in the year 9 B.C., or nearly 2000 years ago, 

 assigns to this island exactly the same level relatively to the sea as 

 that which it has to-day. " Ictis " j, says Diodorus, " is left dry at 

 low tides, at which times the inhabitants of Belerium, or Cornwall, 

 transport thither, in carts, the tin which they produce on shore. 

 Here the traders buy it from the natives and carry it to Graul, over 

 which it travels on horseback to the mouths of the Ehine." 



Purther reasons for believing in the persistence of the existing 

 coast-levels through long periods of time are to be found in the 

 fact that an embankment of Boman, if not of pre-Eoman, age, 

 situated in the Wash, stands upon the same horizon with a similar 

 structure which has been built in its neighbourhood during modern 

 times ; while aU the early English chroniclers, from Bede down- 

 wards, take their stand, so to speak, on the present levels of the 

 country. 



Mr. Pengelly's latest expression of opinion with regard to the 

 age of the submerged forest of Torbay is as follows § : — 



" It seems highly probable that the era of the forest growth was 

 of great duration, extending from times before the extermination of 

 the mammoth in Devon down to the introduction of the sheep and 

 the goat. Be this as it may, while there are reasons for believing 

 that the forests under consideration are more recent than the deposits 

 which in the neighbouring [Kent's Hole and Brixham] caverns have 

 yielded palaeolithic tools interosculating with relics of several extinct 

 mammalian species, there seems no reason, on the other hand, for 

 doubting that they extend back to palaeolithic times in Devonshire."" 



Such being the conclusions of the distinguished geologist who is, 

 perhaps, better acquainted than any other investigator with the 

 submerged forest of Torbay, attention will this evening be drawn 

 to certain facts which seem to indicate that, while some of the 

 so-called peat-beds of the forest are not older than Eoman times, 



* Trans. Dev. Assoc, rol. i. pt. iv. p. 36, and ibid. vol. xr. p. 137. 

 t Trans. Eoy. G-eol. Soc. of Cornwall, vol. iii. p. 86. 

 I Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 452. 

 § Trans. Dey. Assoc. toI. xv. p. 138. 



