this coast, viz. the remains of a forest considerably below the level of the sea, and now only to be seen at low water.[1]
The first appearance of this submarine forest is opposite Stolford, about a quarter of a mile eastward of the place where a small brook runs into the sea. From this point to the mouth of the Parret there is a flat shore, which at low water is covered with a deep and almost fluid mud. The adjoining land is protected from the sea by a high bank of pebbles, composed almost entirely of the lyas limestone, and which increases in height near the place where the forest begins. Here there are seen at intervals patches of various dimensions raised six or eight inches above the sand, and upon digging into these they are found to consist of a dark brown matter resembling peat or decayed vegetable substances, mixed with a plant in which the structure is entire, with twigs and small branches of wood in a soft state, and containing here and there a few nuts. This brown matter rests upon a light blue very stiff and unctuous clay, and is of various thickness; in general from a foot to eighteen inches, but in one place I observed it two feet and a half without coming to the blue clay. Trunks of trees of a very large size are found at different intervals surrounded by the brown matter, and with their roots diverging as they grow, and fixed in the blue clay. The smaller twigs and branches in the brown matter, which look like the roots of underwood, also penetrate the blue clay, and the clay contains a great deal of that particular plant which appears the least decayed in the brown matter. Besides the trunks there are stems of great trees sunk in the brown matter and strewed about, but without any uniformity of direction: some of these I found 20 feet long, and many of them had lateral branches attached to them.
- ↑ This submarine forest was first pointed out to me by my friend Thomas Poole, Esq. of Nether Stowey.
