316 



ISLAND LIFE. 



[part II. 



in the clay, without anything like a prevalent direction. The 

 trunks varied from six inches to upwards of two feet in diameter. 

 Much of the wood was found to have a reddish or bright pink 

 hue, when fresh surfaces were exposed. Some of it, as well 

 as many of the twigs, had almost become a sort of ligneous 

 pulp, while other examples were firm, and gave a sharp crackling 

 sound on being broken. Several large stumps projected above 

 the clay in a vertical direction, and sent roots and rootlets into 

 the soil in all directions and to considerable distances. It was 

 obvious that the movement by which the submergence was 

 effected had been so uniform as not to destroy the approximate 

 horizontality of the old forest ground. One fine example v/as 

 noted of a large prostrate trunk having its roots still attached, 

 some of them sticking up above the clay, while others were 

 buried in it. Hazelnuts were extremely abundant — some entire, 

 others broken, and some obviously gnawed. ... It has been 

 stated that the forest area reached the spring-tide low-water 

 line; hence as the greatest tidal range on this coast amounts 

 to eighteen feet, we are warranted in inferring that the sub- 

 sidence amounted to eighteen feet as a minimum, even if we 

 suppose that some of the trees grew in a soil the surface of 

 which was not above the level of high water. There is satis- 

 factory evidence that in Torbay it was not less than forty feet, 

 and that in Falmouth Harbour it amounted to at least sixty- 

 seven feet." ^ 



On the coast of the Bristol Channel similar deposits occur, 

 as well as along much of the coast of Wales and in Holyhead 

 Harbour. It is believed by geologists that the whole Bristol 

 Channel was, at a comparatively recent period, an extensive 

 plain, through which flowed the River Severn ; for in addition 

 to the evidence of submerged forests there are on the coast of 

 Glamorganshire numerous caves and fissures in the face of high 

 sea cliffs, in one of which no less than a thousand antlers of the 

 reindeer were found, the remains of animals which had been 

 devoured there by bears and hygenas ; facts which can only be 

 explained by the existence of some extent of dry land stretching 

 seaward from the present cliffs, but since submerged and washed 

 ' Geological Magazine, 1870, p. 165. 



