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Facts and Legends As to Submergences in Historic Times

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Westropp has made an interesting and important disclosure of the legends of submerged lands with villages, churches, etc., all around the coasts of Ireland. In some instances they are believed to be magically visible again above the surface in certain conditions; in others the spires and walls of a fine city may at times, it is thought, be still seen through clear water. Nearly, if not quite, every one of them coincides with a shoal or bank of no great depth, the upjutting teeth of rocks, or a barren fragmentary islet—vestiges perhaps of something more conspicuous, extended, and alluring. Westropp says: “When we examine the sea bed, we see that it is not impossible (save Brasil and the land between Teelin and the Stags of Broadhaven) that islands may have existed within traditional memory at all the alleged sites.”30 In some cases considerable inroads of the ocean are perfectly well known to have occurred within relatively recent historic centuries. The same on a large scale is certainly true of Holland—witness Haarlem Lake and the Zuyder Zee. Other countries, perhaps most countries, might be called as witnesses.

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