SUBMERGED FORESTS. 175 



Like remains of buried and submerged forests have 

 been seen on the low coasts of Lancashire and Che shire. 

 The author of English horests and Forest Trees writes: — 

 . " In approaching Liverpool from the sea, few prospects 

 can be less attractive to the tourist in search of the 

 picturesque than that presented by the shores he is 

 approaching. The high, bold scenery of North Walas on 

 the south, and of Cumberland on the north, which in clear 

 weather may be seen far away on tlie ' horizon's verge,' 

 seems to come to an abrupt termination, and be succeeded 

 by a flat expanse of yellow sand, unbroken by tree or town, 

 and only dotted here and there by a lighthouse or a 

 beacon. Liverpool is hidden by the bend of the Mersey, and 

 the great broad estuary of the Dee seems a deserted lake, 

 its solitude only broken by a few white sails, or the lazy 

 smoke of some passing steamer, while the intervening 

 coast resembles a section of the great desert of Sahara, 

 rather than a shore near ' a monstrous pitchy city and 

 sea-haven of the world.' Flat, dull, and uninteresting as 

 this shore may be, yet under this repulsive exteri-or it 

 hides a vast amount of curious information, and affords 

 abundant material for speculation and theory. We are 

 told by geologists, that as part of the great means by 

 which nature is constantly preserving the balance of 

 creation, the sea in many places is washing away the land 

 making encroachments on the shore, and adding to the 

 ' treasures of the deep ' many a farm and man)' a village 

 on which human industry was lavished, and where human 

 beings once had their abode. So is it here between the 

 Mersey and the Dee. The Irish sea, aided doubtless by 

 some more distant force, is too powerful for the resistance 

 of the Cheshire shore. The very first object the traveller 

 meets after leaving New Brighton is positive evidence of 

 the fact. A mass of red sandstone has obtruded itself 

 into light, as if to defy the waves, and is known locally as 

 the red noses. But sad is the havoc they have undergone 

 from the sea. Grooves and furrows and caves have been 

 cut in them as smoothly as by edge-tools. The cleanness 



