182 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
tween hi^h- and low-water, is a bed of turf " about a foot thick, witli 
the trunks of trees, chiefly ash and fir, standing upright, and their 
roots running down into the alluvial blue sandy marl. These roots 
may be traced for several feet, and it is plain that ' here they lived 
and died.' " jMr. Gumming states, in 1848, that he has in his pos- 
session one of these tree-stumps, hearing upon it " marks of a hatcltet 
and he further records, on what he considers unquestionable testi- 
mony, that during a violent storm in 1827, the sands at a spot a little 
to the west of Strandhall were swept away, and a vast number of 
trunks, some erect and others overthrown towards the sea, were 
exposed, and that " the foundations of a primitive TiuV were laid hare, 
together with some " antique, uncouth-looking instruments^ These 
facts, taken in connection with the traditions respecting the presence 
of the sea at Port-e-chee, are of the highest importance in their bear- 
ings upon the great question of the antiquity of the human race, and 
would, if properly authenticated, establish the fact of great physical 
changes having passed over the island during the human epoch. The 
subject is certainly deserving of further investigation. 
Additional evidence of these successive uprises of the land exists 
at different parts of the coast in the shape of ancient beaches and 
beds of gravel at various elevations. Good examples of both may be 
found in the neighbourhood of Douglas. The old town itself is built 
upon the last-raised beach, and in digging for building or other pur- 
poses, a considerable thickness of fine sand is passed through, identical 
with that now found on the adjacent shore, and often containing 
fragments of bones much decomposed. Behind this most recent of 
the raised beaches there rises to a considerable height all round the 
bay a much more ancient one, in some places consisting of the under- 
lying slaty schists, and in others — near Castle JNIona, for instance — 
of thick beds of fine sand, similar to that composing the present 
beach. 
In the interior and in the north of the island, particularly at St. 
John's, between Douglas and Peel, and at Ballaugh, between Peel 
and Eamsey, are extensive marl-beds, in which fragments, and occa- 
sionally whole skeletons, of the great Irish — or rather Manx elk, as it 
is asserted that the first specimen of this gigantic animal was disco- 
vered here, and not in Ireland — are found. The most perfect speci- 
men known was found in a marl-pit at Ballaugh, in 1819, at a depth 
of eighteen feet, and was presented by the Duke of Athol to the 
University of Edinburgh; a magnificent head and horns from the 
same place is now in the British Museum. These marls are full of 
fresh-water shells of existing species, and occasionally become a true 
shell- marl. 
Kesting upon these marls, and filling up the hollows of most of the 
upland valleys, are extensive peat-bogs of great thickness. They 
contain great quantities of trunks of trees, principally pines and 
oaks, proving the fact — of which, indeed, we have frequent notice in 
Manx history — of the woody character of the island in former times. 
This peat, owing to the want of coal ^n the island, is of great value, 
and is very extensively used by the natives as fuel. 
