110 TORBAY ONCE A WOODED TRACT. 
ocean either just prior to the possession of this 
country by man, or during the first era of his 
residence.* Warner in his “ Cornish Tour” places 
implicit belief in the assertion of William of Wor- 
cester, that St. Michael’s Mount was situated six 
miles from the sea previously to the tenth century. 
But. however this may be, the connected evidence 
of geological enquiry on the one hand, which points 
out not only vegetable remains of existing species 
at present within the grasp and territory of the 
ocean, but even the remains of an ancient beach 
still further out within its precincts, and of histori- 
cal record (in great measure vague and equivocal, 
yet coincident as to general report) on the other, 
fully attest that at one time our sea stood mutch 
further out than now, and suffered communication 
over dry land, between certain elevated points at 
this day severed by intervening ocean. 
Torbay undoubtedly presented at one period,— 
namely, contemporaneously with Mount’s Bay and 
the tract of land above spoken of,—a low, swampy, 
forest tract. Submerged trees of the kinds before 
named have been recognised on its shores, and the 
alder an accompaniment of rivers, has been drawn 
up, as I am informed, from the very centre of this bay, 
the depth of which is inconsiderable, and which is 
* Nennius, who wrote twelve centuries ago, reports that there 
subsisted then, a tradition of the Isle of Wight haying formerly 
been united to the British Coast, he adds, that the name of the 
Isle is derived from an old British word signifying a rent or 
separation. Still however, the disjunction could have been but 
partial, as appears from this last fact, and the report of Diodorus 
in the first century, that the Romans at the ebb of the sea, con- 
veyed their tin in carts from Hampshire to the “Isle of Vectis” 
or Isle of Wight. It would appear that in the time of Ptolemy 
the great Geographer, namely shortly after Diodorus, the number 
of small Isles was much greater than at present. 
