The Mount 1810

Finally got to the 'bottom' of the stories of the inundations [They DID happen] and the fact that The Mount is NOT Ictis. It will take a while to write it up.

A few observations, having greatly enjoyed this picture: The sailing vessel to the left looks rather like a present-day yacht! The Mount looks a lot steeper and more like a raw volcano - I wouldn't like to run to the top like I had to to return a wallet to a French party leader once. It is rather hard to make out whether you're looking at buildings or a harbour and vessels below. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating view and certainly one I have never seen before!

Despite the harbour having been improved c1775, housing was not at its height until 1812. I believe the extended pier was later, remind me. Heights on these drawings were always exaggerated. But it does impress upon the viewer of the immense effort required to build the chapelry on the apex, and the degree of isolation up there. The other point is that the area was denuded of trees.

Diodorus the Sicilian Book V:22
But we shall give a detailed account of the customs of Britain and of the other features which are peculiar to the island when we come to the campaign which Caesar undertook against it, and at this time we shall discuss the tin which the island produces. The inhabitants of Britain who dwell about the promontory known as Belerium are especially hospitable to strangers and have adopted a civilized manner of life because of their intercourse with merchants of other peoples. They it is who work the tin, treating the bed which bears it in an ingenious manner. This bed, being like rock, contains earthy seams and in them the workers quarry the ore, which they then melt down and cleanse of its impurities. Then they work the tin into pieces the size of knuckle-bones and convey it to an island which lies off Britain and is called Ictis; for at the time of ebb-tide the space between this island and the mainland becomes dry and they can take the tin in large quantities over to the island on their wagons. (And a peculiar thing happens in the case of the neighbouring islands which lie between Europe and Britain, for at flood-tide the passages between them and the mainland run full and they have the appearance of islands, but at ebb-tide the sea recedes and leaves dry a large space, and at that time they look like peninsulas.). On the island of Ictis the merchants purchase the tin of the natives and carry it from there across the Strait to Galatia or Gaul; and finally, making their way on foot through Gaul for some thirty days, they bring their wares on horseback to the mouth of the river Rhone.
At the time of writing, The Mount was well and truly part of the land and within a wooded area.
Diodorus was a Greek born in Sicily, and a writer of Roman History, hence his name Diodorus Siculus. The above written in 45BC.

On the subject of sea levels and the Ictis theory. From the time of Diodorus, the sea has been rising (as it had been doing for 14,000 years before), as well as the effects of isostatic rebound. The rate of 1.7mm/yr isostatic rebound plus 15cm/century ice melt. Tidal guage measurements
confirm that this has been a steady rate since c1850.
2000 x 1.7 + 20 x 150 = 6.4 metres (21 feet)
Just what would Cornwall's shape have assumed, is something that I have been planning for some time, for a start there would be 3.5 less fathoms depth of water surrounding Penwith. Just how this Grey Rock in the Wood would have been accessed by sea in 57BC, or even 200BC, as some reports from Greece have it, I am not yet sure.