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in in the 14th century.” And as Mr. Jenkinson in his preface 
acknowledges the assistance of both the Messrs. Ferguson, all the 
available facts are evidently stated in the paragraph I have quoted 
from the Guide, and Mr. R. S. Ferguson’s view is but a natural 
conjecture based on the supposed position of “the way leading to 
Skinburness.” 
But the acceptance of this view as to the former position of 
Skinburness seems to me to be fraught with many serious difficulties 
from a geological point of view. 
In the first place, the broad loamy flats bordering Morietfaiie 
Bay, (mainly on the north side of the railway between Kirkbride 
and Abbey Town, and on both sides of it between the neighbour- 
hood of the Abbey and Silloth,) gradually and almost imperceptibly 
decrease in height as we approach the present foreshore of the 
Bay. Consequently all existing villages and hamlets are either, 
like Kirkbride and Abbey Town, on the higher ground bordering 
the flats, or, if on the flats, are at a considerable distance from their 
Solway edge, while the cause of their position is usually some two 
or three feet of extra height, as at Newton Arlosh and Calvo. 
Besides these there is a third class on the shingle ridges of the 
coast, to which group Beckfoot, Blitterlees, Silloth, and the present 
Skinburness belong. Now with existing levels—and the pre- 
sumption is on many grounds strongly against either upheaval or 
submergence in this area for many more than five hundred years— 
the Solway edges of these flats must have been still less habitable 
in the days of Edward I. than they now are, in consequence of 
their then comparatively undrained condition. 
But let us suppose (for the sake of argument) that the whole 
district was elevated, many centuries ago, so that the flats of 
Moricambe Bay, now uncovered only at low water, were perma- 
nently high and dry. Then if a port had existed abutting on the 
combined channel of Waver and Wampool, it would have been in 
no danger whatever of being destroyed by a violent irruption of the 
sea, inasmuch as it must have been as far from anything that could 
be called sea as Kirkbride is now. On the other hand it is manifest 
that a gradual subsidence from a former more elevated level to the 
