ON THE ICTIS OF DIODORUS SICULUS. 319 
former part of this paper, we have no fewer than 
five recorded inroads of the sea upon the English 
coast, within the space of two centuries. 
Of the causes, which led to the disappearance 
of the Ictis of Diodorus, history has preserved no 
trace. Whether it was the effect of a gradual 
subsidence of the land, or of the continued action 
of the waves and tides on a coast unusually ex- 
posed, we have no positive means of determining. 
Each of these may have contributed its share 
towards the final result. A depression of the 
land may have taken place in the first instance, 
and the inroads of the sea may have done the rest. 
It is well known, that the winds, which blow from 
the Atlantic on the Cornish coast, frequently bring 
with them storms of most destructive violence. 
The effects of these storms, combined with the 
disintegration of the softer beds of granite, from 
the ordinary atmospherical influences, are strongly 
exemplified in the caverns and hollows along this 
coast. There is something particularly striking 
in the Funnel Hole, at Tol Pedn Penwith. 
This hole resembles the hopper of a mill, being 
in shape like an inverted cone, from ten to fifteen 
fathoms deep, with an opening into a cavern below, 
