140 



The Naturalist. 



bear fine clay and marl, and spread it over the peat to the depth of 

 about three feet ; and the lake drains off, and marshy turf grows on 

 the clay, and an aspect is thus given to the shallow depression, which 

 appears to have existed from the earliest historical time." 



The doubtful point in this conclusion seems to be as to the forma- 

 tion of a lake after the peat deposit. This may or may not have 

 been the case, but it seems hardly likely ; first, because the summits 

 of the surrounding ridges are scarcely high enough to form a fair 

 collecting ground for water sufficient to form a lake ; and secondly, it 

 seems more probable that the overlying 10 inches of loose clay, is 

 rather the detritus brought down by the heavy rains, which are so 

 frequent amongst these hills, than a lacustrine deposit ; and besides, 

 there are no traces of any kind of bank which could hold in the waters 

 of a lake at the lower end, which below the present artificial embank- 

 ment is the same marshy ground named above, from which the stream 

 runs down on a gradual decline to join the Holme. 



From the early portion of his paper, Mr. Plant would apparently 

 have us draw the inference that, as on the Lancashire side, no trees can 

 grow about here now but a few starved stinted beeches and firs, and 

 this would seem to be borne out by a few similar trees surrounding 

 this depression, but Mr. Plant seems to have overlooked the fact that 

 in the Black Syke Valley, on the opposite side of the road and about 

 100 feet or thereabouts lower down, both oak, beech, and birch are 

 growing in a large wood which extends to the summit almost of the 

 opposite ridge. These trees are certainly not of the large diameter in 

 the trunk that obtains in many of the buried ones, but still they are 

 of very respectable dimensions, and many of them are more than 20 or 

 30 feet in height. 



r As to the age of this deposit or hurled forest — for it can scarcely 

 be called a submerged forest as we generally understand that term — 

 Mr. Plant says nothing, at least the printed report does not. Indeed, 

 it would be rather a difficult matter to determine it. It may have 

 formed a portion of one of those great primeval forests which clothed 

 many parts of this district prior to the Eoman invasion, or it may 

 have been much older, and perhaps, indeed, partially or wholly buried 

 at that period. There is at present, however, no apparent data on 

 which to base a satisfactory conclusion on this point. One point, at 

 any rate, is clear that there has been no submergence ; the forest has 

 simply been covered over by another deposit, without any sinking, it 

 is thus simply a hurled not a suhmerged forest. 



