206 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
in definitely showing the coincidence of the hke forms of animals 
and of vegetation existing on both sides of the straits, dwelling 
strongly on the presence in both countries of certain noxious animals 
which were not likely to have been brought over by man. 
The investigations of Mr. Martin and Dr. ManteU, extended since by 
other eminent English geologists, and the theoretical arguments of 
upheaval and cross-fracture of the Wealden area by Mr. Hopkins, 
have all strengthened and confirmed the conclusion of the fonner 
union of the two countries, which may now be regarded as thoroughly 
established. 
As it is not always easy to determine in the study of Nature the 
why and the wherefore of all we see, so masked as it may be by 
transmissional fancies and obscurities, there may yet be a rudiment 
of truth in most traditions. In more than one case the investigations 
of geology have given something like a foundation in reality to tales 
that were before considered only within the bounds of fiction. So 
that at last we have even come to regard fiction itself as drawing 
upon reality for its creations ; and popular superstitions as founded 
on some original occurrences, or as illiterate transformations of not 
untruthful deductions. The recent discoveries of fossil relics of 
human workmanship lend still greater probability to the idea that 
many of the old fanciful legends may have been based upon primitive 
facts or existences in very remote times indeed : and I think we 
should not quite regard as an idle inquiry some researches into 
the origin and bearings of the remarkable tales of losses of land 
and catastrophes which for centuries have been current alike, 
with very remarkable coincidence, in Cornwall, in Wales, and in 
Brittany. 
Is it not indeed possible that the incidents referred to might have 
been far more remote in antiquity than the Armorican race from 
whom these tales have been directly handed do'svn to us, or than the 
Scandinavian tribes from which the Armoricans have been by some 
antiquaries thought to have derived them. If primitive man was the 
associate of the mammoth, why from primitive men should not have 
come down to us the legend-mystified history of the channel-fissure ; 
and in the legendary losses of land may there not be some original 
truthfulness of reference, in remote antiquity, to some great catas- 
