156 Dr. Correa de Serra on a submarine Forest, &c. 
the neighbouring people, concur to strengthen this suspicion. 
Leaves and other delicate parts of plants, though they may be 
long preserved in a subterraneous situation, cannot remain 
uninjured, when exposed to the action of the waves and of the 
air. The people of the country believe, that their parish church 
once stood on the spot where the islets now are, and was sub- 
merged by the inroads of the sea; that, at very low water, 
their ancestors could even discern its ruins ; that their present 
church was built to supply the place of that which the waves 
washed away ; and that even their present clock belonged to 
the old church. So many concomitant though weak testimo- 
nies, incline me to believe their report, and to suppose that 
some of the stormy inundations of the North sea, which in 
these last centuries have washed away such large tracts of land 
on its shores, took away a soil resting on clay, and at last un- 
covered the trees which are the subject of this Paper. 
