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Show 276 GOODWIN SANDS.-COAST OF KENT. In the Isle of Thanet, Bedlam Farm, belonging to the hospital of that name, has lost eight acres in the last twenty years, the land being chalk from forty to fifty feet above the level of the sea. It has been computed, that the average waste of the cliff between the North Foreland and the Reculvers, a distance · of about eleven miles, is not less than two feet per annum. The chalk cliffs on the south of 'l'hanet, between Ramsgate and Pegwell Bay, have, on an average, lost three feet per annum for the ten last years. The Goodwin Sands lie opposite this part of the Kentish coast~ They are about ten miles in length, and are in some parts three, and in others, seven miles distant from the shore, and, for a certain space, are laid bare at low water. When the erection of a lighthouse on these sands was in contemplation by the Trinity Board, twelve years since, it was found, by borings, that the bank consisted of fifteen feet of sand, resting on blue clay. An obscure tradition has come down to us, that the estates of Earl Goodwin were situated here, and some have conjectured that they were overwhelmed by the flood mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle, sub anno 1099. The last remains of an island, consisting, like Sheppey, of day, may, perhaps, have been carried away about that time. In the county of Kent, there are other records of waste, at Deal; and at Dover, Shakspeare's Cliff, composed entirely of chalk, has suffered greatly, and continually diminishes in height, the slope of the hill being towards the land. About twenty years ago, there was an immense land-slip from this cliff, by which Dover was shaken as if by an earthquake. In proceeding from the northern parts of the German Ocean towards the Straits of Dover, the water becomes gradually more shallow, so that in the distance of about two hundred leagues, we pass from a depth of one hundred and twenty, to that of fifty-eight, thirty-eight, twenty-four, and eighteen fathoms. In the same manner, the English Channel deepens progressively from Dover to its entrance, formed by the Land's End of England, and the Isle of U shant on the coast of Fr~nce i so that the strait between Dover and Calais may be sa1d to form a point of partition between two great inclin~d planes, forming the bottom of these seas*. • Stevenson on the Bed of the Germtm Ocean,-Ed. Phil. J ourn., No, v., P· 4S. FORMATION OF TilE STRAITS OF DOVER. 277 Whether England was formerly united with France has oft~n been a ravourite subject of speculation; and in 1753 a society at Amiens proposed this as the ~ b' t f . I · h · d ... u 3ec o a pnze essay w uc wHa s g{i ame by the celebrated D esmares t , t 11 en a young' man. . . e ounded h~s principal arguments on the identit of compositiOn o. f the chffs on the opposi't e S'I de s of t h e C hanYne l on a submarme chain extending from Boul t F lk ' l .tt .t' ogne o o estone on y· 10urte·e n .1eet under low water and th 'd . ' 1 . ' on e 1 entity of the noxiOus amma s m England and France wh' 1 ld h • ' lC 1 cou not ave bsw am acrosHs the I strmts, and would never hav e b een .m trod uced y man. e a so attributed the rupture of the isth t the prepon d erat·m g · 1 mus o VIO ence of the current from th th '*' It will hardly be disputed t?at the ocean might have :;e~~ed ~ breach through the land whiCh, in all probability once united our country to the continent, in the same man~er as it now gradual.l y. forces a passaQ~' e through rocks of th e same mm. era1 composition, and often many hundred feet h' 1 coast Alth h 1 · Ig 1 ' upon our . oug t le time required for such an operation was probably very great, yet we cannot estimate it b reference to the prese.nt rate of waste on both sides of th~ Channel. Fo~ when, m the thirteenth century, the sea burst ~l~ough th.e Isthmus of Staveren, which formerly united riesland WI~h North Holland, it opened in about one hundred Eyena rs1 ad sft rait more than half a.s wide as that h' h d' 'd w Ic lVI es g an ro~ France, after whiCh the dimensions of the new c~annel. remamed almost stationary. The greatest depth of t ~· ~rmts between Dover and Calais is twenty-nine fathoms ~·IC· .onl! exceeds, by one fathom, the greatest depth of th; h iSSISsippi at New Orleans. If the moving column of wat . t e great A · · . er m fl 'dl meriCan river, which, as we before stated does not itos w rap1. y ' ca n mai·~ t am· a~ open passage to that' de th in alluvial ~ccumulatwns, still more might a channel ~f th stiadm e magmtude b e excavateu..J b y the resistless force of thee es and currents of " the ocean stream , ' 'lfO'T'txfkOIO f.J.E'Y:X. aBEVOS" !lxeaVOIO, str!! Fol~stone, the sea eats away the chalk and subjacent . . out the year 1716, there was a remarkable sinking * Cuvier, iloge de Desmar~st. |