78 
RAISED BEACHES. 
picture of extensive contemporaneous forests 
and. niaislies ^ fitting landscape for the 
barbarians whom at the dawn of modern 
history we discern wandering amidst the 
wilderness. 
The degenerate condition of our fore¬ 
fathers, the occupants of these gloomy 
wilds, serves to remind us of the calamitous 
condition of those who are destitute of the 
light of Divine Revelation ; and by parity of 
reasoning, also convinces us of the moral 
degradation which must ensue from the 
neglect of this the only source of true civili¬ 
zation and advancement. I 
Another class of phenomena affords un- i 
equivocal evidence of change in the sea-level. 
The raised beaches, which are common along 
oui’ shores, and the submarine forests which i 
also fringe many portions of the same, attest 
two opposite instances, of this our task re¬ 
quires some allusion to the latter. 
The submerged forests on the shores of 
Normandy and Cornwall, have been the 
subjects both of tradition and legend. 
The Cornish tradition is that the space 
betw een Mount’s Bay and the Scilly Islands, 
