THE MUSEUM. 



299 



ton. In I 361, the inhabitants were com- 

 pelled to remove from the place, and in 

 1393 there was no trace of the place 

 left. It is well known that after the 

 Norman Conquest, Holderness on the 

 East coast was represented as an island. 

 Mr. Walton in a work called Loose 

 Leaves from the LLi story of the H um- 

 ber, says "that the villages of Paull, 

 Kelsey, Dimlington, and Keyingham, 

 once formed a cluster of islands far to 

 the South of the Yorkshire coast, 

 whilst north and south for miles around 

 the present Humber, the waters ex- 

 tended, and in later times the spaces 

 were filled up, and formed the district 

 called Holderness." 



Ravensrod was a neighbor and off- 

 shoot of Ravenspurne. It occupied a 

 long, low islet, which was accessible 

 from the mainland by a fiat ridge of 

 sand and pebbles. We read of its 

 having been, 500 3^ears back, a flour- 

 ishing seaport, eclipsing its progenitor, 

 and also exciting the jealous attentions 

 of the ' 'good men of Grimsby on the 

 opposite bank." In the time of the 

 second Edward it was deemed of suffi- 

 cient importance to attract the Royal 

 attention, and to bring down upon it- 

 self, in consequence of that attention, 

 the inevitable demands for a ship, to- 

 gether with men, arms and provisions. 

 But the great intruder, the sea, swept 

 it all away after an existence of about 

 half a century. 



Hyde or Hythe (it is spelled both 

 ways), appears to have been a well-to- 

 do fishing village — at least we may 

 reasonably suppose so, from the fact 

 that it paid as much as thirty pounds 

 per annum to the Monks of Meaux Ab- 

 bey, as its tithe for fish. The whirli- 



gig of time, however, brings round its 

 revenges, and the fish at length 



the burghers dispossessed 

 And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest. 



With numerous churches on the coast 

 the turbulent waves have played es- 

 pecial havoc, and many a parish fane 

 has succumbed to their assaults. Kiln- 

 sea Church was one of the last washed 

 away. The sea sapped and undermin- 

 ed the eminence on which it stood, so 

 that the building quivered under the 

 shock of the waters. Service, not- 

 withstanding, was held in it up till 

 1823, and was then discontinued only 

 because the building showed unmistak- 

 able symptoms of a speedy dissolution. 

 The walls cracked, the floor subsided, 

 the windows broke, the sea-birds flew 

 in and out, and made their nests inside. 

 Half of the church fell into the sea in 

 1826 and five years later the other 

 half follo^Yed. As the sea is gradually 

 gaining ground in the neigborhood of 

 the cliff on which the church stood, ihe 

 houses, of a necessity, became aban- 

 doned from time to time. At one 

 point 43 yards of land have been swal- 

 lowed up in six years. The average 

 annual decrease along the coast is two 

 yards and a half. 



Chas. T. Whiting, 



Montreal. 

 [to be continued.] 



The Florida Gopher or Land Tor- 

 toise. 



By Charles h. Coe. 



The term gopher was first applied 

 by the early French settlers in Cana- 

 da to such reptiles and mammals as 

 burrowed in the ground, and it is still 

 in use to distinguish the pouched rat 

 or pocket gopher and the ground squir- 



