114 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
but these are very scarce. The following minerals have been found iu this 
district by a local geologist. Salphate of iron, mundic, specular iron-ore, 
sulphuret and the black and green carbonates of copper, carbonate of iron, 
iron-ore, broAvn and pearl spar, sulphuret of lead, carbonate of lead, sulphuret 
of manganese, epidote, schorlite, actinolite, prehonite, steatite, asbestus, 
talc, and pot -stone. 
On the western side of the island there is a bay where an extensive peat-bed 
was discovered not many years since. It happened thus : after a heavy gale, 
masses of wood and peat were seen floating about, and several pieces were 
stranded by the force of the waves on the shore; the sand and shingle which 
form the sea-bottom having been removed by the fury of the storm, these beds 
of peat, which lie exactly below them, were thus exposed and portions uplifted, 
Avhich to the astonishment of the islanders were strewed over their shores. 
"Trunks of full-sized trees, accompanied by the wreck of humbler plants, which 
once carpetted the meadows where they grew, roots and rushes, surrounded by 
moss, gave evidence of the rank luxuriance of the locality. The compression of 
the trunks and boughs exhibit the first indication of that flattened form which 
all fossil plants undergo, by the superincumbent pressure during the slow 
decomposition of the vegetable fibre, without the complete destruction of the 
texture of the wood. The trees were overspread with coralines, fuci, and 
sertularise ; and riddled with the numerous perforations of three species of 
'Pholas, P. dadylus, P. Candida, and P. parva, the dead shells of which were 
found in their holes. Pieces of pottery, stone-implements, teeth of horses and 
hogs, have likewise been discovered in the peat."* This peat is used for fuel, 
and is called by the natives "gorban" (corban, i. e., a gift). 
From the position and appearance of this peat, we may conclude that an 
extensive forest once extended along a great part of the western shores of 
Guernsey, and that the sea has gradually encroached on the land at this side of 
the island ; and it is well known that part of Guernsey, called the " Braye du 
Val," was only prevented from being swallowed up by the sea by means of an 
embankment made near the Yal church in the year 1808 ; for the encroach- 
ments of the sea over this tract of land became yearly more and more apparent. 
The shores of this part of the island are low and sandy, everywhere dotted with 
little hillocks of drifted sand. Druidical cromlechs are here very abundant, in 
Avhich many curious relics of antiquity have been discovered. The largest 
cromlech is composed of five cumbent stones of immense weight, covering an 
area of twenty-nine feet long and twelve wide ; in this were found many human 
teeth and bones, and some entire earthern vessels. There are several other 
" druidical temples" in the vicinity of I'Ancresse. On the south-western side 
of Guernsey there is a rocky islet called Lihon, which is accessible to the 
edestrian at low water ; but at high tide must be reached by means of a 
oat. On account of the beds of gravel, which here repose on the granite, as 
also from marks of a supposed ancient sea-margin on the rocks, some have 
imagined that the present elevation of the district is much higher than formerly ; 
these layers of gravel have been accounted for, however, as having been washed 
by rivulets and rain from the high southern lands of Guernsey down to this 
lower part of the island ; but there still remains the marks on the rocks at 
Lihon to be accounted for. There is a similar appearance of a raised sea-beach 
on the north-western coast, near a place called " Paradis." 
The islet of Lilion consists chiefly of gneissic rocks, traversed in some places 
by veins of felspar. There are the remains of an ancient priory ; and in the 
rocks on the shore of this island are to be seen two curious natural basins- 
scooped out of the rock by the violence of the sea — which tradition asserts 
* Extract from a letter of Mr. Jukes to the " Guernsey Star." 
