176 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
EAISED BEACHES AND SUBMERGED FORESTS. 
ABSTRACT OF PAPER BY R. N. WORTH, F.G.S., ETC. 
(Read January 22nd, 1885.) 
The Lecturer's remarks with regard to the Raised Beaches and 
Submerged Forests of the Plymouth area were as follows : 
The Hoe Raised Beaches attracted notice more than sixty years 
ago. The earliest published record of them with which I am 
acquainted is by the Rev. Richard Hennah, f.g.s., in 1817 ^ and 
a few years later he summed up his observations in the following 
words : 
" In many parts of the Hoe, on the declivity towards the sea, 
about fifteen or twenty feet above high- water mark, and in other 
places also, there is a bed of sand and water-worn pebbles, varying 
in thickness, from less than a foot to that of two or three, 
cemented together in layers, which layers, however, are composed 
of pebbles about the same size . . . strongly indicating that this 
was, at a remote period, the level of the sea." 2 
That Mr. Hennah was the discoverer of this Beach, first dis- 
tinctly exposed by the cutting of a road round the Hoe in 1816, 
is stated by Dr. Edward Moore. 3 
In 1832 the Beach, as it then appeared, was described by Sir 
H. de la Beche,* and it is subsequently mentioned by him, in 
1839, 5 as one of those most worthy of observation in the Western 
Counties, though not then described. In the latter year, however, 
it was not only described, but figured (in part), by Mr. J. C. 
Bellamy, as it appeared in the month of May. He states that at 
the Western Hoe, " at an elevation of about fifty feet above the 
present sea," a "most interesting section" had been exposed, 
"about twenty feet in depth" 6 He then proceeds : 
1 Geo. Trans. 1st Series, vol. iv. p. 412. 
3 Succinct Account of the Lime Rocks of Plymouth, p. 58. 
3 Rep. Brit. Assoc. (1841) Trans. Sees. p. 62. 
4 Geological Manual. 5 Rep. Dev. Corn, and W. Som. p. 428. 
6 Natural Hist, oj S. Devon, pp. 114-5. The italics are Mr. Bellamy's. 
