country when the land stretched farther out to sea than at the present time. In this particular case Mr. Pengelly estimates the submergence to have been not less than forty feet since the forest was alive.
Similar proofs of submergence are to be met with on our coasts wherever the land dips gently under the water line. On the shores of St. Bride's Bay, in the twelfth century, the stumps of trees, and the peat around them at low water, excited the wonder of Gerald de Barri,[1] and yielded to Dr. Hicks, in 1868, the remains of the brown bear and the stag. From this point the forest has been observed in very many places farther north, at Liverpool, and on the coast of Lancashire. In the latter district it has been shown by Mr. De Rance to be older than the Roman occupation, since Roman coins were discovered in the tidal alluvium,
- ↑ "From Haverford we proceeded on our journey to Menevia, distant from thence about 12 miles, and passed through Camros, where, in the reign of K. Stephen, the relatives and friends of a distinguished young man, Geraldus, son of William, revenged his death by a too severe retaliation on the men of Ros. We then passed over Niwegal sands, at which place, during the winter that K. Henry the Second spent in Ireland (as well as in almost all the other western ports), a very remarkable circumstance occurred. The sandy shores of South Wales being laid bare by the extraordinary violence of a storm, the surface of the earth which had been covered for many ages reappeared, and discovered the trunks of trees cut off, standing in the sea itself, the strokes of the hatchet appearing as if only made yesterday; the soil was very black and the wood like ebony; by a wonderful revolution the road for ships became impassable, and looked not like a shore but like a grove cut down perhaps at the time of the deluge, or not long after, but certainly in very remote times, being by degrees consumed and swallowed up by the violence and encroachments of the sea. During the same tempest many sea-fish were driven by the violence of the wind and waves upon dry land. We were well lodged at S. Davids by Peter, Bishop of the See, a liberal man, who had hitherto accompanied us during the whole of our journey."—Itinerarium Camhriæ. Book i cap. 13.
