The Glastonbury Levels lie at about the height of ordinary high tides, and the channels through them would still be tidal were it not for the banks which keep out the sea. Some years ago there were discovered on the surface of these marshes a number of low mounds, which on excavation proved to be the remains of a village of lake-dwellings, approached by a boat-channel, by the side of which were the remains of a rough landing stage. The dwelling-places rested on the old salt-marsh vegetation, brushwood and soil being used to raise their floors above the level of the highest tides. It is evident that when this village was inhabited the sea-level must have been the same as now, or within a foot or two of its present height. If the sea-level was then higher, the village could not be inhabited; if it were lower the channel would not have been navigable and the landing stage would have been useless. The archaeological remains found in this village prove that it belongs to a period dating about the first century B.C. or the first century A.D.
Another locality on the south side of the Bristol Channel which we must not pass without notice is Westward Ho, in Bideford Bay. There is nothing exceptional about the submerged forest at this place, but it has been carefully studied and collected from by Mr Inkermann Rogers, and it may be taken as a typical example of such deposits in the south of England.
