SI 



is stated on good aiithority, tliat in tho excavations made for tlie 

 pui-pose of laying tho foundations, the skeleton of a man and 

 ox were found imbedded in peat, fifteen feet below the surface 

 they wore in an upright position and were probably lost in the 

 morass that once bordered the river. Other relics too numerous 

 to mention could be cited. Though Canterburj' has been sub- 

 ject in past times to inundation this depth of eartli is principally 

 due to the accumulation of road-makin"- material and rubbish. 

 As it is im[)robable that the early inliabitants would erect 

 buildings of any importance on land liable to be frequently 

 flooded, we may conclude that the mean level of tlie river is 

 higher now than it was onco, although lower than it was before the 

 water-way at the "NVestgate bridge was widened a few years ago. 

 Tho travelling of the shingle from the westward is also a well- 

 known fact, as it will be found to be heaped up on the west side 

 of tho wooden groins on the south coast ; this being the effect 

 of the prevailing south-west gales and set of the surface di-ift it 

 will serve to indicate the cause of the great extent of shingle 

 beach. The ordinarj' foi'ce of the wind is quite insufficient to 

 move a leaden bullet, but when fired perpendicularly from a gun 

 a slight breeze is sufficient to deflect it so that it will fall to lee- 

 ward of the point of fii-e. If in place of the propelling force 

 of the i^owder we put that of the wave and for the wind sub- 

 stitute the flow of the tide, we may account for the translation 

 of the pebbles along a shore for any distance. When a pebble 

 on the beach is raised by the action of a wave it falls down again 

 in the same place or is swept up and down tho sloping shore in 

 a straight lino, but when there is a flow of the tide in a 

 direction parallel to the shore the pebble in rising and falling 

 will be carried, it may be only the fraction of an inch, in the 

 same direction until it arrives at a meeting place of the tides or 

 the stream at a river's mouth, when in the latter cases a bar will 

 be formed, or in the former a pebble ridge at an angle to the 

 shore. The meeting place of the two tidal waves, (the one 

 flowing from the Atlantic round the northern shore of Great 

 Britain, and the other round the southern) varying from hour 

 to hour between Beachj" Head and the North Foreland, may be 

 considered as mainly instrumental in pi-oduciug tho wide 

 expanse of silt and shingle forming Dungeness, although as be- 

 fore mentioned the rivor Rothcr, and other streams have doubt- 

 lessly plaj-ed their part in bringing together tho washing of the 

 land forming tho silt, as tho pebbles are evidentlj' the effect of 

 wave action. For the Channel tides see Proceedings of 

 Geological Society for 1877, vol. xxxiii., page 31. llye, near the 

 south-western border of Eomney Marsh, now two miles from the 

 coast, was once destroyed bj' the sea. Winchelsea, in Edward 

 I. reign was likewise destroyed, the river Kother being forced 



