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Show 282 CHESIL BANK. . f 'd toagreated d y, b et ween th. e pe.n insula and thef 1ng o tt es, or h 1. 1 t bstructwns m the course o W 1 seen t at s J&l 0 . . land. e lave . h 0 rse of a man's hfe, Islands the Ganges will cause, mh t ehc~: of Portland, and which, in . 1 l'O'er than t e w o h d d many times a o· t of a co1 u mn of earth more than one un. re some cases, cons~s may expect the slightest 1mpe-d In hke manner, we . . . feet eeR· f that tidal wave; whiCh IS sweepmg diment lil the cours~r~cts of our coast, to give rise to banks away annually large . .1 'n length if the transported d d 1 · O'le many mi es 1 ' . of sa~ an s.Jmo ed in their passage to those submarme materials be Intercept b by the current. The gradual receptacles ":hither t~ley ~retl orn:avel as we proceed eastward, diminution IIi the SI~e ~ 1 ~ g tion' if the velocity of the tide might probably admlt o. exp ana cer'tai'ned. the rolled masses d' ffi t pomts was as ' or eddy at 1 eren h the nlotion of the water is most b · ng larO'est w ere thrown up ei o d 't d at the least distance from violent, or where they are epos~ etached The storm of 18~4 the rocks from whic~ ~1 ey ~e;e Y e and th~ villaae of Chesilton, burst over this bar wit grea ur ~ t f the b;nk was over-built upon ~he south:; the;tf:::bha~ts*. The fundamental whelmed, with manY: l £ und at the depth of a fe" rocks whereon the slung e rests llre o yards only below ~he .level of th~.sea. the "Church Cliffs," as At Lyme Regis, ~~ ?orse~s 1~::' about one hundred feet they are called, consistln~ If . ' at the rate of one yard in height! have grOduallyTl~e e~i~:a:f Devonshire and Corn· a year, smce 180 t. d f hard rocks decay less h. h h' fly compose o ' . wall, w IC are c Ie . C ll there is a ptojectmg rapidly. f Nl eadr pa~~e~~~~ '~~r:::,~a f~rmed of granitic sand; tongue o an ' c . f the Breakwater at Plymouth, and h~ge "' This same storm earned away part o f th . ther side and rolled fmrly masses of rock were lifted from .th-e bottom o out~ w:,~d also du~ing a spring tide, to the top of the pile. It was 1U the same m ' land in tho year 1099. that a great flood is menti~:l~d ~~~ !~~r;~:;so~~~:~nes ~f Nov.,l099, thea~: Florence of Worcester says, n d en very many, and oxen an came out upon the shore, and buried tCohrwns -:~e :·eady cited, for the year 1099, sheep m. numerab le . " Also th. e, Saxon d omth e '1 1th of Novembre, sprung. up so "This year eke on St. Martm s-mass ay, did as no me.n minded that Jt e'Ver Ihuch of the sea. flood, and so myckle harm ' " th lk day a new moon. . afore did, and there was e y f L Die in 1800, and agatn t This ground was measured by Dr. Carpenter, o y ' . U.1829. . LIONNESSE TRADITION IN CORNWALL. 283 from wh;ch more than thirty acres of pasture land have been gradually swept away in the course of the last two or three centuries*· It is also said that St. Michael's Mount, now an insular rock, was formerly situated in a wood several miles from the sea; and its old Cornish name, according to Carew, signifies the Hoare Rock in the Wood. Between _the Mount and Newlyn, there is seen, under the sand, black vegetable mould, full of hazel nuts, and the branches, leaves, roots, and trunks of forest trees, all of indigenous species. This vegetable stratum has been traced seaward as far as the ebb permits, and seems to indicate some ancient estuary on that shore. The oldest historians mention a celebrated tradition in Cornwall of the submersion of the Lionnesse, a country which formerly stretched from the Land's End to the Scilly Islands. 'rhe tract, if it existed, must have been thirty miles in length, and perhaps ten in breadth. The land now remaining on either side is from two hundred to three hundred feet high; the intervening sea about three hundred feet deep. Although there is no evidence for this romantic tale, it probably originated in some catastrophe occasioned by former inroads of the Atlantic upon this exposed coast t. Having now laid before the reader an ample body of proofs of the destructive operations of tides and currents on our eastern and southern shores, it will be unnecessary to enter into details of changes on the western coast, for· they present merely a repetition of the same phenomena, and in general on an inferior scale. On the borders of the estuary of the Severn, the flats of ·Somerset shire and Gloucestershire have received enormous accessions, while, on the other hand, submarine forests on the coast of Lancashire indicate the overflowing of alluvial tracts. There are traditions in Pembrokeshire t and Cardigan shire § of far greater losses of territory than that which the Lionnesse tale of Cornwall pret~nds to commemorate. They are all important, as demonstrating that the earliest inhabitants were familiar with the phenomenon of incursions of the sea. The French coast, particularly that of Brittany, where the * Boase, Trans. Royal Geol. Soc. of Cornwall, vol. ii., p. 129. f Ibid., p.l30. t Camden, who cites Gyraldus1 also Ray, " On the Deluge." Phys. Theol. p. 228. § Meyrick's Cardigan. |