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ODDITIES of SUSSEX
The Lost Forest - Pett Shoreline
Off the Pett shore are the remains of a submarine forest of oak, beech
and pine.
At certain states of the tide the stumps can be plainly seen. After a
south-west gale the sands of Camber are thickly strewn with fragments of
its remains, dark slabs of compressed peat-like substance, in which the
chips and splinters of wood arc more obvious than in ordinary bog peat.
The largest tribute from this pre-historic forest washed up within ordinary
memory occurred in the 1910's, when the smooth sands of Camber foreshore,
littered as far as the eye could reach with uncanny black fragments, presented
a most curious spectacle.
A stranger coming suddenly upon it might well wonder what sort of wreckage
had come ashore in such profusion. For one does not expect to find submarine
forests flinging up their secrets in such abundance on these familiar Sussex
coasts.