MANCHESTER GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. I?? 
That the whole phenomena do not clearly lead to the alternate 
conclusion^ whether this first change of level was owing to 
subsidence of the land^ or to elevation of the water ; but it 
is more probable it was effected by a rise in the surrounding 
sea^ from the uniformly horizontal marks of the several sea 
levels round our coasts. 6th, It is, moreover, inferred, from 
the prostrated state of the trees in these forest beds, lying 
nearly in one direction, in the same area of submergence, that 
the secession of the waters was accompanied, in some 
period of its duration, with a current of some force, and that 
from the points between N.W. and N. E. 7th, It is not yet 
satisfactorily shown upon what geological operations, either 
normal in kind, or cataclysmal in character, the subsidence 
of the land or elevation of the water, at this epoch, 
depended.^^ 
Mr. Binney stated, that the peat bogs of Lincolnshire, 
Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire, which he had inspected, 
led him to believe that they were of comparatively speaking 
modern origin, and certainly formed posterior to the deposits 
of till and regular gravel. He was in possession of Roman 
coins found under a bed of peat, at Misterton, near Gains- 
borough ; and stone celts had been discovered embedded in 
stems of trees dug out of mosses, in the same neighbour- 
hood. In 1746, the body of a female, clothed in skins, and 
in perfect preservation, was found six feet deep at the bottom 
of a peat bog, in the isle of Axholme. He had never, in the 
districts before named, seen a bed of peat covered with till 
or regular gravel, although he had often, in the valley of the 
Trent, found from fifteen to twenty feet of river silt or warp 
upon peat; and at Hornsea, on the Yorkshire coast, he had 
observed beds of common sea sand and shingle, in the same 
position ; but in both these cases the till occurred under. In 
the level of Hatfield Chase, and the low lands adjoining the 
VOL. II. NO. XVII. T 
