FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALLEGED

SUBMARINE FORESTS ON THE SHORES

OF LIVERPOOL BAY AND THE RIVER MERSEY. In reply to Dr. Hume's communication of 10th July, 1865.

By Joseph Boult Esq., F.R.I.B.A.

(READ 9TH NOVEMBER, 1865.)

IN a communication to this Society on 10th July last, the Rev. Dr. Hume has controverted the opinions on this subject which I expressed in a paper read before the Polytechnic Society on 10th April, and published in the Journal of that Society. I regret to find, from the tone of his communication and from conversation with him, that the Rev. Doctor has felt the observations I felt called upon to make upon portions of Ancient Meols, and upon the writings of other gentlemen, to assume the character of a personal attack upon himself. This I beg to disclaim altogether. My object in making that communication was to correct an impression which seemed to me very erroneous, but which was gradually becoming an accepted opinion. To this end I made use of Ancient Meols as the most recent publication on the subject, containing a comprehensive and convenient summary of all that can be alleged in support of the views expressed therein. I set out with saying, that, "when I charge those who differ "from me with exaggeration and mis-statement, I do not

wish to accuse them of dishonesty "-it was not my intention to go beyond the limits of fair discussion and searching criticism; and I do not think I am chargeable with

having done so. I do not however intend to occupy your time with observations of this purely personal character; if my conduct is amenable to the censure Dr. Hume has expressed and implied, observations of mine cannot procure exemption from your disapproval.

We meet to-night to ascertain the real state of the question under discussion; not to determine whether the opinions Dr. Hume and I hold of each other's method of conducting controversy be well or ill-founded.

Reference has been made to three papers contributed by me to the British Association for the advancement of Science in 1854, 1855 and 1856; and it is asserted that two papers, virtually the same, have been laid before the Association four times, at three of its successive annual meetings. This statement is erroneous; and though it is unsupported by any evidence, I may be permitted to say that those who feel interested may see a notice of the first paper in the Liverpool Mercury of September, 1854; it consisted entirely of diagrams, which have never been used again at any meeting of the Association; the substance of the second is given in the Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal for 1855; the third is published, at length, in the volume for 1856 of the Proceedings of the Association, and it has been recently reprinted, almost in full, in the Artizan.*

The second paper was prepared on the suggestion of my colleagues on the special committee; it excited some interest, and was read in a second section at the request of influential members of the Association, by whom the requisite permission was obtained. I understood that a summary appeared in one of the London daily papers, but I did not see it. It may be of interest, now that their report is again under consideration, to mention that the special committee consisted of the Earl

Vol. for 1865, p. 30.

of Harrowby, Sir Philip Egerton, Bart., Sir R. I. Murchison, Admiral Beechey, Mr. George Rennie, C.E., Mr. Joseph Brooks Yates, Mr. Andrew Henderson, and myself: all these gentlemen, with the exception of Mr. Yates, were very regular in their attendance at meetings of the Committee. Various members of the Committee specially assisted in the investigations; and, through the influence of the Earl of Harrowby, and of Admiral Beechey, I had access to various documents of importance in the offices of the Board of Trade, the Hydrographer to the Admiralty, the Duchy of Lancaster, and elsewhere. *

It

Dr. Hume's communication of July last contains a great deal of interesting and instructive information, which, however, appears to me irrelevant to the points on which we differ. seems intended to correct assumptions in which I never indulged. I do not question the discovery of coins, fibulæ and brooches at Hoylake; nor the existence of what, in ordinary parlance, are called submarine and subterranean forests; nor the great encroachments, especially on the Lancashire coast, of blowing sands; in 1856 I prepared for this Society a paper in which I invited attention to the latter, and especially to the destruction of the village or hamlet of Altmouth. This was published in the Liverpool Courier, and a reprint is in the Society's library. The points really at issue between us appear to me to be but two; which are (1) whether the several remains of forests are in situ, where they grew, or are they depositary and (2) whether during the last two thousand years the main features in the history of the coast indicate accretion or diminution.

Whilst correcting the press, I have seen a proof of part of the paper which Dr. Hume has prepared for publication in this volume in lieu of the two which he read at the meetings, and I find that the portion to which the foregoing paragraphs refer has been omitted; as, however, they are in type, it seems better that the record should stand.

+ D. 7.

All the other questions as to the graveyard, the lighthouse, &c., are subsidiary to these main questions; but as the existence of these remains is relied upon as part of the evidence, it seems desirable to review the allegations in that behalf.

I think it must be admitted that, with respect to the graveyard, the only testimony, which can be regarded as in any way authenticated by personal responsibility, is to be found in the articles in the Liverpool Courier. These Dr. Hume says were written by Mr. Kaye, a fact of which I was previously ignorant. It is clear that neither Telford, Stevenson nor Nimmo has left the slightest record of the discovery of either the graveyard or the ploughed fields. As considerable stress is laid upon the opportuneness of selecting this period, after a lapse of nearly forty years, to question the authenticity of the alleged discovery, I quote a remark of the late Mr. Egerton Smith, after republishing the Courier's article:"We presume Mr. Nimmo must have published all the par"ticulars of his singular discovery, but we have never had "the good fortune to meet with any such document."

This "sceptical" remark was published in September, 1837, or nine years and a half after the date of the alleged discovery. In my former paper I have mentioned that when in 1828 the Mercury reprinted part of the Courier's article on sea encroachments, in which the discovery of the graveyard was recorded, the passage relating to that discovery was omitted, as if the editor of the Mercury distrusted its authenticity. Evidence is given in the report of the committee of the British Association inimical to this supposition. Of that committee Mr. Yates, who is cited in support of the alleged discovery, was a member; but it does not appear that he ever uttered the slightest comment; and, in 1856, appeared the paper, before referred to, on the alleged old lighthouse at Wallasey Leasowe, and the ancient village of Altmouth.

Great value is attached to the fact that the eight gentlemen, named by the Courier, had visited the Leasowe shore on the day, or shortly after, it is supposed the alleged discovery was made. We are told they were "publicly appealed to within forty-eight hours, in an article which recites their names; "and that, if the statement had been untrue, or if the evi"dence had not satisfied them, there would have been a "contradiction of it-whereas there is a corroboration in the "very next number of the paper." This corroboration is quoted subsequently, but, such as it is, does not come from these gentlemen; it sets forth that the writer thinks he shall be able to shew that the ravages of the sea had involved the destruction, not only of the lighthouse, to which he had before alluded, as well as of the graveyard, but also of a church; whether this church was in any way connected with the cemetery he had not yet had the means of investigating.

Now, as to the testimony of the eight gentlemen. Their visit we are told was made "at the time of high water," and therefore, since the graveyard was "150 or 200 yards below "the flow of the tide," it would be impossible for them to see it; and their evidence, if they had given it, could have been hearsay evidence only, and could not be accepted if it were tendered. But I have yet to learn that the eight gentlemen by their silence in any way sanctioned the report. To have denied it would have been equivalent to telling their informant he was disbelieved, so they discreetly kept a silence which has never been broken, even by Mr. Hartley, one of their number. No doubt the eight gentlemen were "greatly "interested" in the alleged discovery, when it was reported to them; but it does not appear that any of them ever saw the graveyard.

Considerable stress is laid upon a note from Mr. Hartley in 1846.* He says, "all I know of any antiquities in the

Pro. Lit. and Phil. Soc., No. 2, p. 69.