ON RECENT DISCOVEEIES IX THE SUBMERGED FOREST OF TORBAY. 9 



2. On some Kecent Discoveries in the Submerged Eorest of 

 ToRBAY. By D. PiDGEON, Esq., F.G.S. (Read November 5, 

 1884.) 



Among the numerous examples of submerged forests which occur at 

 intervals all round the English coast, there is none, perhaps, better 

 known than that of Torbay. This has been described by De la 

 Beche, Godwin- Austen, and many other geologists, but more parti- 

 cularly by Pengelly, who has given considerable attention to it and 

 speaks * of it as follows : — 



" Considerable accumulations of vegetable matter, with stumps 

 and roots of trees, firmly fixed in bluish clay, and evidently the 

 remains of a forest which once grew on the spot, exist in all the 

 inlets of Torbay. The most important and best known is that which, 

 at very low water, is more or less exposed at Torre-Abbey sands 



the greater part of which is commonly concealed by sand 



and shingle, but is occasionally laid bare by a heavy sea. In these 

 and similar deposits of Goodrington and Broad Sands have been 

 found the bones of various animals, among which are the red deer, 

 the wild hog, the horse, the long-fronted ox, and the mammoth, 

 the last, if not the last two, being certainly extinct." 



The character of the evidence in favour of the mammoth having 

 roamed the submerged forest of Torbay is well known. Many years 

 ago some Brixham fishermen trawled a tooth of Elephas jprimigenius 

 (which is now in the Museum of the Torquay K"atural History 

 Society) near the entrance of the bay, and neither Dr. Falconer, who 

 identified it, Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. Godwin-Austen, nor Mr. Pengelly, 

 who closely examined it, had any doubt that this molar is a true 

 forest-fossil, "which was torn by the trawl out of a submarine exten- 

 sion of the forest. 



'^ It is probable therefore," continues Mr. Pengelly, " that the 

 remains of the ancient forest occupy the greater part of the Torbay 

 area. Nor is this merely a modern opinion, since Leland, in his 

 ' Itinerary,' says ^ Eisschar men hath divers tymes, taken up with 

 theyr nettes yn Torrelay Musons of hartes, whereby men judge that 

 yn tymes paste it hath been forest grounde.' " 



Erom all which considerations, the author in question concludes: — 



1. That the country must have been at least forty feet higher 

 during the forest-era than at the present time ; the depth of water 

 in which the mammoth's molar was dislodged being from five to six 

 fathoms. 



2. That, subsequently to the forest-era, there was a general 

 subsidence to the amount of forty, and perhaps of many more feet. 



3. That the forest was of sufficient antiquity to have sheltered 

 the mammoth and long-fronted ox. 



* Trans. Dev. Assoc, vol. i. pt, iv. p. 30. 



