Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 3.djvu/391

 perhaps been washed away since the time he observed them, for in the place where the forest now exists it was formerly of much greater extent, and is evidently wearing away so rapidly by the action of the tides, that it is probable not a trace of it may exist some years hence. How far it extends out to sea it is impossible to say, for from within half a mile of low water, the shore is covered with mud.

§ 55. There is a very considerable resemblance between this submarine forest, and that on the coast of Lincolnshire observed by Sir Joseph Banks and Mr. Correa de Serra, and described by the latter in the Philosophical Transactions for 1799. I did not however End that flattened appearance of the trees which he speaks of, and the bark did not seem to be better preserved than the rest of the tree. I could not learn that any similar substratum had been found in the adjoining country, but it is stated by Mr. De Luc, that in digging new channels for the rivers Brue and Axe, eastward of Bridgwater, there was found at a great depth under the soil of the marsh, a continuous bed of peat.

§ 56. It is hardly possible to describe this interesting phenomenon without offering some conjecture as to its cause. Before any rational and well grounded theory could be formed, it would be necessary to examine with great attention the district of low land adjoining so the river Parret, and to collect all records of sections that have been made in it. The explanation that most readily occurs is that it has been caused by an encroachment of the sea on the breaking down of some barrier. But the remarkable disturbances that appear in the strata, the slips in these which must have evidently taken place after the consolidation of the rock, and the occurrence of the forest opposite that part of the coast where there are perpendicular cliffs 20 feet high, appear to me to favour