Rambles among the Channel Islands / by a Naturalist.

Date:
[1855?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rambles among the Channel Islands / by a Naturalist. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    390/402 (page 378)
    stance is found in many parts of the coasts of these islands. It is a wide bay, having an extensive flat bed of sand superimposed upon the vegetable deposit beneath it, and which extends beyond low-water mark, far towards the west and north under the sea. It is somewhat difficult at present to place the original barriers which once opposed the encroachment of the waves upon the land. The present rocky islets and breakers may, however, be supposed to show the ex- tent of the outer line of coast—a natural accumulation of drift may readily be conceived as then limiting the inroad of the sea, and serving as a protection to the forest lands spread within this area. This ancient forest, which w'as still in part occupied by the early inhabitants of this island, has now disap- peared, and it is only known to have once existed by the arduous operation of digging through the sand in this locality, for the purpose of obtaining it for fuel. The force of the late storm has, however, proved a “ Ood-send,’’ or as its local name imports, “a gift”— corban—known with us as gorhan. Its appearance on Tuesday last was truly interesting. Trunks of full-sized trees, which once grew on the spot from whence the w'aves now were for the first time dislodging them, accompanied by the meadow plants w'hich once ornamented their grassy habitation—roots of rushes and weeds, surrouuded by those of-grass and mosses—gave evidence of the luxuriancy of the locality. These roots exhibited a lengthened period of growth, and, like some other bog plants, they grew upwards as the vegetable covering increased, leaving their dead roots and fibres below to add their quota to the further accumulation of vegetable matter. The very pei’fect state in which these trees were, shows that they have been for a long time buried under sand. The compression of their trunks and boughs