280 Mr. R. C. Taylor on the Geology of East Norfolk. 



nev and Yare. The area wliich is circumscribed by these 

 vailevs and the sea, forming the hundred of Lothingland, 

 still retains its name of the Island. 



A. D. 1004, Sweyn, as the Saxon Chronicle states, "came 

 with his fleet to Norwich," which he plundered and burned. 

 From the circumstance of this fleet proceeding so far as thirty 

 miles into the interior, it is inferred that this could not have 

 been effected in safety within the ordinary channel of the Yare, 

 but that the whole valley was at that time navigable. 



Domesday-book is the next historical document which sup- 

 plies certain proofs of the sea having entered into the eastern 

 valleys. These proofs exist in the salines, or saltworks, which 

 are enumerated in many parishes, now distant from the ocean. 



The bank on which Yarmouth is placed became firm and 

 habitable ground about the year 1008; but it continued an 

 island, that is, it had a northern as well as a southern chan- 

 nel, as late as the year 1347. From a memorial of the inha- 

 bitants it appears, that at the latter period, the main passage 

 at Grubb's haven was silted up ; that thousands of acres in 

 consequence of the exclusion of the tide had become good 

 land ; and that the inland waters with extreme difficulty forced 

 their way to the sea, through the opposing beds of sand and 

 shino^le, almost as far southward as Lowestoft. 



In the 13th and 14th centuries, the contentions between the 

 citizens of Norwich and the burgesses of the rival port of 

 Yarmouth, gave rise to certain documents, which are useful 

 in the present inquiry, by showing that to these periods trad- 

 ing vessels sailed up to Norwich, " the King' s Port ; where all 

 foreign merchants paid their customs." The citizens pleaded 

 " that Norwich was a mercantile and trading town, and one of 

 the royal cities of England, scituate on the banks of a water 

 and arm of the sea, which extended from thence to the mai7i 

 ocean, upon which shipps, boats and other vessels have im- 

 memorially come to their market." — " and all this long be- 

 fore Yarmouth was in being, even when the place which that 

 now stands upon, was main sea." 



The foregoing recital contains the substance of the evidence 

 adduced to show, " that the eastern valleys of Norfolk were 

 formerly branches of a wide testuary, and that their present 

 rivers and lakes are the remains of that large body of water, 

 by which their surface was overspread, even in times compa- 

 ratively recent." After reviewing all these circumstances, the 

 conclusion to which the author arrives is, " that the change 

 here observed is the result of a depression in the level of the 

 German Ocean itself, which is now at least forty feet below the 

 height where there is evidence of its having been stationary 



at 



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