CHAP. XVI.] 
THE BRITISH ISLES. 
315 
highlands where the greatest accumulations of ice would 
necessarily occur during the glacial epoch, and they may well 
be termed submarine lakes, of exactly the same nature as 
those which occur in similar positions on land. 
Proofs of Former Elevation — Submerged Forests . — What renders 
Britain particularly instructive as an example of a recent con- 
tinental island is the amount of direct evidence that exists, of 
several distinct kinds, showing that the land has been sufficiently 
elevated (or the sea depressed) to unite it with the continent, 
— and this at a very recent period. The first class of evidence 
is the existence, all round our coasts, of the remains of sub- 
marine forests often extending far below the present low-water 
mark. Such are the submerged forests near Torquay in Devon- 
shire, and near Falmouth in Cornwall, both containing stumps 
of trees in their natural position rooted in the soil, with deposits 
of peat, branches, and nuts, and often with remains of insects 
and other land animals. These occur in very different conditions 
and situations, and some have been explained by changes in the 
height of the tide, or by pebble banks shutting out the tidal 
waters from estuaries ; but there are numerous examples to 
which such hypotheses cannot apply, and which can only be 
explained by an actual subsidence of the land (or rise of the 
sea-level) since the trees grew. 
We cannot give a better idea of these forests than by quoting 
the following account by Mr. Pengelly of a visit to one which 
had been exposed by a violent storm on the coast of Devonshire, 
at Blackpool near Dartmouth : — 
“ We were so fortunate as to reach the beach at spring-tide 
low-water, and to find, admirably exposed, by far the finest 
example of a submerged forest which I have ever seen. It 
occupied a rectangular area, extending from the small river or 
stream at the western end of the inlet, about one furlong east- 
ward ; and from the low-water line thirty yards up the strand. 
The lower or seaward portion of the forest area, occupying about 
two-thirds of its entire breadth, consisted of a brownish drab- 
coloured clay, which was crowded with vegetable debris, such 
as small twigs, leaves, and nuts. There were also numerous 
prostrate trunks and branches of trees, lying partly imbedded 
