On the Fhcenician Tin Trade in Cornwall, by R. Edmonds. 27 
than the parts immediately around it, as if the wave which carried 
the gravel and pebbles to the top of the elevation had not sufficient 
velocity to carry them over it. I have also observed a similar 
marine deposit in the deep railway cuttings through the same sand- 
bank, near Half- way-house, with land-shells imbedded in situ 
throughout a depth of four or five feet beneath it. 
It being thus evident that a very extraordinary irruption of the 
sea took place in Mountsbay — sweeping over every part of a long 
sand bank covered with turf, and, in some places, ten feet or more 
above high-water mark, — it will be interesting to consider at what 
period this inundation might bave happened. Assuming that the 
sand has accumulated on the higher parts of the bank, since the 
inundation, at the rate of one inch in twenty or twenty five years, 
(and the accumulation has not, I think, exceeded thnt rate during 
the last fifty years,) and knowing that the present beight of the 
bank above the layer of gravel then deposited is about three feet, 
we are carried back to about the eleventh century, when, in 1014, 
" on the eve of St. Michaels mass, (according to the Anglo Saxon 
Chronicle,) came the great sea-flood wide throughout this land, and 
ran so far up as it never before had done, and washed away many 
towns, and a countless number of people." By this extraordinary 
inundation, the layers above described were probably deposited. 
In neither of the sections was there any indication of the sea 
having ever before passed over the growing turf, although, from 
the land-shells found in situ and in perfect preservation four or 
five feet beneath the pebbles, the turf must have been constantly 
growing on the bank from as far back probably as the commence- 
ment of the Christian era. 
Now, if the sea a few centuries ago could, in a large and open 
bay, sweep over the whole of a long sand -bank, in souie parts ten 
or fifteen feet above high water, and for centuries before always 
covered with turf and undisturbed by the waves, what would it 
not have done in funnel-shaped coves, such as that of Lamorna, 
