200 Mr. Robberds on the former Level of the German Oeeafi, 



From what beds of sand in its vicinity have the grains been 

 wafted that are strewed over its whole plain ? Till within the 

 last eight centuries it was confessedly at first a shoal in the 

 asstuarv, and then an island between the two entrances into 

 the river ; it is now a peninsula, about four miles long and 

 half a mile in breadth. On the east it is bounded by the sea; 

 the haven divides it on the south from the inhabited tracts of 

 Gorleston and Southtown ; and on the west from the meadows 

 and marshes that extend far into the interior ; on the north,, 

 the buildings and inclosures of Caistor intervene between this- 

 level and the higher grounds, except for a short space, where 

 it reaches without interruption to the foot of the cliff, which 

 stretches thence along the coast to the northward. This is the 

 only point from which the wind can have conveyed any ex- 

 ternal drifts of sand into the quarter which we are investi- 

 gating. I will, therefore, ask in the first place, is it possible 

 that the limited supply derived from this single spot can have 

 produced an average elevation even of one inch, when scat- 

 tered over an area of two square miles? and in the second 

 place, must not the winds, blowing upon this tract fi-om every 

 other point of the compass, have swept away into the sur- 

 rounding waters at least as much of the loose, shifting soil as 

 can have been brought in by all the gales that have come fi:oni 

 N.N.E. ? The nature of sand and dust cannot be changed by 

 the atmosphere of Yarmouth ; they can acquire there no addi- 

 tional weight or consistency to make them more tenacious of 

 their position, nor can the old pioverb of " Lightly come and 

 lightly go," be less exemplified in their departure than in their 

 approach. 



From these considerations it is obvious that the ground 

 which we are exploring can have been little, if at all, raised 

 by any " external covering of sand," brought there by the 

 winds ; and that the superficial coat of that material cannot at 

 this time be very different from what it was when the bank 

 first emerged from the waves. Its component particles may 

 have been more or less removed from one side, and accumu- 

 lated into hillocks on another ; but such transfers evince no 

 sensible addition to the aggregate amount of the whole mass. 

 " The conflict of meeting tides and the fury of our easterly 

 ^ales," to which I ascribed the original construction of this 

 work, are certainly adequate to such an operation in the 

 mouth of a wide aestuary ; but the bank when so formed can 

 have been left dry by no other process than the depression of 

 the waters beneath which it was collected. 



Supposing, however, that Mr. Taylor had been able to 

 point out any quarter whence the wind could have brought 



these 



