Insulation of St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall," maintained
that the change which converted that Mount from a promontory into an
island must have taken place, not only within the human period, but since
Cornwall was occupied by a people speaking the Cornish language. As a
proof of this somewhat startling assertion, he adduced the ancient British
name of St. Michael's Mount, signifying _the Hoar rock in the wood_.
Nobody would think of applying such a name to the Mount in its present
state; and as we know that during the last two thousand years the Mount
has been, as it is now, an island at high, and a promontory at low tide,
it would indeed seem to follow that its name must have been framed before
the destruction of the ancient forest by which it was once surrounded, and
before the separation of the Mount from the mainland.

Sir Henry James, in a "Note on the Block of Tin dredged in Falmouth
Harbor," asserts, it is true, that there are trees growing on the Mount in
sufficient numbers to have justified the ancient descriptive name of "the
Hoar rock in the wood;" but though there are traces of trees visible on
the engravings published a hundred years ago, in Dr. Borlase's
"Antiquities of Cornwall," these are most likely due to artistic
embellishment only. At present no writer will discover in St. Michael's
Mount what could fairly be called either trees or a wood, even in
Cornwall.

That the geographical change from a promontory into a real island did not
take place during the last two thousand years, is proved by the
description which Diodorus Siculus, a little before the Christian era,
gives of St. Michael's Mount. "The inhabitants of the promontory of
Belerium," he says (lib. v. c. 22), "were hospitable, and, on account of
their intercourse with strangers, eminently civilized in their habits.
These are the people who work the tin, which they melt into the form of
astragali, and then carry it to an island in front of Britain, called
_Ictis_. This island is left dry at low tide, and they then transport the
tin in carts from the shore. Here the traders buy it from the natives, and
carry it to Gaul, over which it travels on horseback in about thirty days
to the mouths of the Rhone." That the Island of Ictis, described by
Diodorus, is St. Michael's Mount, seems, to say the least, very probable,
and was at last admitted even by the late Sir G. C. Lewis. In fact, the
description which Diodorus gives answers so completely to wha