482 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



submergence was so great as antiquarians suppose. 1 know that 

 in Scotland the well-known occurrence of trees under peat has 

 often suggested legends of ancient forest-lands having been dis- 

 mantled in historic times, and even grave historians have pointed 

 to the occurrence of the buried trees as proof that the land was 

 everywhere covered with vast forests at the Roman period, 

 although by far the larger portion of the forest-bogs of Scotland 

 certainly dates back to a much greater antiquity. 1 Although, 

 therefore, it may be quite true that there has been some recent 

 loss of land in the maritime districts of Brittany, in the Channel 

 Islands, and on the opposite coasts of Cornwall, there is yet no 

 reason to believe that this has been so extensive as some anti- 

 quarians suppose. At all events, we shall probably not err in 

 assigning the growth of the now submerged trees and peat of the 

 Channel Islands and the adjacent French shores mainly to pre- 

 historic times. They are in all probability merely a continuation 

 of the similar phenomena in the Departments of Somme and 

 Calais and in Flanders, and the forest -bogs of the inland 

 districts of France and Northern Europe generally belong in 

 great measure to the same distant period. 



It is from those bogs that we derive the most interesting 

 details of Postglacial history. Indeed, but for them we should 

 know very little of the series of changes which took place in 

 Central and Northern Europe after the close of the Glacial 

 Period. There are no recent marine deposits like those of Scan- 

 dinavia and the British area, which by means of their organic 



1 The various traditions and antiquarian evidence relating to the past condi- 

 tion of the coasts of the Channel Islands and the adjacent shores of France have 

 been industriously compiled by Mr. R. A. Peacock, who refers to an ancient chart 

 of that part of the French coast, said to be of date 1406, but copied from one 

 much older, which shows Jersey connected with the mainland, and Guernsey of 

 much larger size than now. Into the antiquarian evidence I cannot enter, but 

 grave doubts as to the authenticity of the ancient chart will obtrude themselves. 

 Jersey was certainly an island in 550, since it is mentioned in records as having 

 been granted by a king of France to the Archbishop of Dol in Armorica about 

 that date, and I fear that considerably stronger evidence than is yet forthcoming 

 will be required to convince geologists that some 1300 or 1400 years ago a map 

 existed, the main features of which correspond so surprisingly with the lines of 

 soundings laid down upon the Admiralty's charts. 



