28 SUBMERGED PEAT AND FOREST BEDS. 



although continually bombarded with shingle, and buffetted 

 by the waves, it does not seem to have suffered to any extent 

 during that period. In the peat near this tree Mr. Duprey, 

 of St. Helier's, found two horn scoops or spoons, no doubt of 

 Neolithic age. 



Exposures occur occasionally at Greve de Lecq, and at 

 St. Brelade's ; constantly in St. Ouen's Bay at high tide 

 margin, between the banks of pebbles, and near La Puiente, 

 in proximity to the sand-banks, where it is possible to stand 

 upon the lower bed and examine the section of the upper one 

 five feet above. But the most extensive and important ex- 

 posures occur on the northern side of St. Ouen's Bay, although 

 here the exposure is rather rare, the sand usually lying from 

 five to ten feet thick above the peat. 



In September, 1902, it was my good fortune to be spending 

 a few days at the house of my friend Mr. Dancaster, close to 

 the shore at this part of the coast, when the largest exposure 

 that has probably occurred within the memory of anyone now 

 living took place. On that day, for about half a mile parallel 

 with the shore, and extending from high tide margin nearly to 

 the distant low-water limit, the whole surface of the old forest 

 was laid bare. Rooted stumps, oak and alder chiefly, stood 

 there in profusion ; some had rotted aAvay, or were worn down, 

 to the level of the peat, but hundreds stood in relief, ranging 

 from one to four feet above the soil. In diameter the trees 

 ranged from a few inches to two or three feet, and one large 

 one (an oak) that I measured had a diameter of no less than 

 4 feet 6 inches at three feet and a half above the ground. I 

 counted four hundred of these trees in the portion of the bay 

 which was accessible to me. Fortunately I was able to obtain 

 the loan of a good half-plate camera, and thus to secure a 

 couple of photographs of this unusual scene. One of these 

 photographs has been reproduced in the Bulletin of the 

 Societe Jersiaise for 1908, and an enlargement of the other is 

 now hanging on the walls of the Museum of that Society. 

 The outer portion of the trees is carbonized and breaks with a 

 black crystalline fracture ; but the interior portion is sound 

 and hard, a condition which would lead many to doubt the 

 extreme antiquity of these old trunks. But I may here 

 mention that a naturalist friend of mine — an official of the 

 British Museum (Mr. Bunting) — has just written me to say 

 that with the remains of a young mammoth recently discovered 

 below 25 feet of gravel in the north of London (October, 

 1909), there are some roots of willow " which cut, and make 

 microscopical sections as if they were but dead of yesterday." 



