ISLAND LIFE. 
[part II. 
316 
in the clay, without anything like a prevalent direction. The 
trunks varied from six inches to upwards of two feet in diameter. 
Much of the wood was found to have a reddish or bright pink 
hue, when fresh surfaces were exposed. Some of it, as well 
as many of the twigs, had almost become a sort of ligneous 
pulp, while other examples were firm, and gave a sharp crackling 
sound on being broken. Several large stumps projected above 
the clay in a vertical direction, and sent roots and rootlets into 
the soil in all directions and to considerable distances. It was 
obvious that the movement by which the submergence was 
effected had been so uniform as not to destroy the approximate 
horizontality of the old forest ground. One fine example was 
noted of a large prostrate trunk having its roots still attached, 
some of them sticking up above the clay, while others were 
buried in it. Hazelnuts were extremely abundant— some entire, 
others broken, and some obviously gnawed. ... It has been 
stated that the forest area reached the spring-tide low-water 
line ; hence as the greatest tidal range on this coast amounts 
to eighteen feet, we are warranted in inferring that the sub- 
sidence amounted to eighteen feet as a minimum, even if we 
suppose that some of the trees grew in a soil the surface of 
which was not above the level of high water. There is satis- 
factory evidence that in Torbay it was not less than forty feet, 
and that in Falmouth Harbour it amounted to at least sixty- 
seven feet .” 1 
On the coast of the Bristol Channel similar deposits occur, 
as well as along much of the coast of Wales and in Holyhead 
Harbour. It is believed by geologists that the whole Bristol 
Channel was, at a comparatively recent period, an extensive 
plain, through which flowed the River Severn ; for in addition 
to the evidence of submerged forests there are on the coast of 
Glamorganshire numerous caves and fissures in the face of high 
sea cliffs, in one of which no less than a thousand antlers of the 
reindeer were found, the remains of animals which had been 
devoured there by bears and hysenas ; facts which can only be 
explained by the existence of some extent of dry land stretching 
seaward from the present cliffs, but since submerged and washed 
1 Geological Magazine, 1870, p. 165. 
