ESSEX AS A WINE-PRODUCING COUNTY. 45 



is very prevalent, and I am inclined to believe that it is well 

 founded, though it is obviously almost impossible to obtain 

 tangible and conclusive evidence by means of which such a belief 

 may be tested. It is almost certain, however, that sue): a change 

 in climate has taken place, within historic times, in some of the 

 other countries surrounding the North Atlantic —namely Iceland 

 and Greenland. In the case of Greenland, it would now be 

 impossible to maintain there such settlements as we know for a 

 certainty were maintained at Kakortok, and elsewhere on the 

 west coast, by the Scandinavians, in the Eleventh and Twelfth 

 Centuries. Then, as regards Iceland, there are several reasons 

 for thinking that its climate has deteriorated since mediaeval 

 times. Ivar Bardsen, a Greenlander, who, in the Fourteenth 

 Century, wrote a description of Greenland, says 37 that, even 

 then, the ice lying in the sea between Iceland and Greenland 

 had increased so greatly that it was impossible to sail the ancient 

 route to Greenland, due west from Snaefjeldnes in Iceland ; 

 while Captain Graah has declaretl 3« that this ice is still 

 continually on the increase on the east coast of Greenland, 

 thereb}' necessitating its thin population to emigrate to the 

 west side. The Norwegian glaciers, too, are said to be extend- 

 ing noticeably. Many other facts pointing in the same direction 

 might be cited ; and it can hardly be doubted that the British 

 Isles have shared in this general deterioration of climate which 

 seems to have gone on over the North Atlantic within his- 

 toric times. 



It is, however, by no means necessary to show that the 

 climate of this country has changed for the worse within historic 

 times in order to account for the discontinuance of viniculture 

 with us. Whether such a change has taken place or not, and 

 whether it has rendered viniculture here more difficult or not, it 

 is probable that the discontinuance of viniculture in Essex was 

 due to another cause altogether — namely, to the steady improve- 

 ment in the means of transport and of communication with other 

 parts of the world, which gradually rendered it less and less 

 remunerative to cultivate the vine in regions certainly not 

 specially atlapted to it, and in which it is not indigenous, when 

 better wine could be imported at comparatively small cjst 

 trom more favoured countries, further south. 



37 Sjc Major's Voyages of the Zenl (Hakluyt Society, 1874I, pp. 39-40. 



38 Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of Greenland, . , . under the com- 

 mand of (apt. W. A. Graah, of the Danish Koyal Navy, . . . , translated by C. G. .\Uic- 

 Doiigatl fLond., 80 , 1837), p. 115. 



