SUBMERGED FORESTS. 



563 



adjacent inland tract ; and although every facility seems thus to be offered for the ad- 

 vance of the sand flood, we have proofs that it has made no progress from the earliest 

 days of British history. In fact, it appears as if, having formerly been blown into 

 comparatively lofty situations, the sand had there become consolidated and bound to- 

 gether at a particular period, probably in part by the growth of bent grass, and that 

 it has since formed a natural barrier, sheltering the inland country from the force of the 

 south-western gales. 



The coast of Caermarthenshire, on the other hand, presents many examples of similar 

 accumulations of sand which are daily increasing, and form low hills upon the strand. 

 These, at certain distances from the main land, act as bars to the removal of the fine 

 detritus brought down by the streams which at these points empty their contents into 

 the sea. The most remarkable example of this natural process is at the mouth of the 

 Taaf, below Laugharne in Caermarthenshire. That river, after a passage through soft 

 shale or mudstone, deposits its fine sediment over a wide space, having a seaward bar- 

 rier of sand banks. The accumulation thus formed, and within modern times, consti- 

 tutes some of the richest land cultivated in South Wales, and the edges of the delta are 

 continually augmenting. None of the dunes now forming, are, however, of the height 

 and magnitude of those of comparatively remote date. 



Submerged Forests. 



Another operation, and one most important in connection with geological theory, 

 must be here alluded to — the change of relative level of land and sea. The cliffs of Pem- 

 brokeshire, which are so extensively and well exposed, offer, indeed, no evidence that 

 this promontory or the mass of South Wales have undergone any sensible elevation or 

 depression within the modern sera. Two examples, however, of submerged forests have 

 come within my knowledge ; but it is by no means certain that these phenomena have 

 been caused by a lowering of the coast ; for forests may have grown at very low levels, 

 protected from the inroads of the sea by shingle banks, the removal of which would 

 occasion their destruction by giving rise to a sudden influx of the sea. One of these 

 submerged forests is occasionally seen on the shore at Gupton Burrows, in a low bay 

 between the opposite promontories of Old Red Sandstone and carboniferous limestone. 

 After powerful storms, the sands being washed away, a stratum of clay and peaty earth 

 is exposed, through which the stumps of trees protrude, as if in a growing posture. 

 The other case, precisely analogous, is on the shore of Newgale Sands, St. Bride's Bay, 

 where, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, the forest was once exposed to a considerable 

 extent. Relating his travels, the Archbishop observes : — 



" We then passed over Niwegal Sands, at which place, during the winter that King Henry the 

 Second spent in Ireland, as well as in almost all the western parts, a very remarkable circumstance 

 occurred. The sandy shores of South Wales being laid bare by the extraordinary violence of a storm. 



