1861.] KENTISH BOTANY. 211 



The old man volunteered to say something, and his testimony 

 was to the effect that Tenterden steeple had caused the choking 

 of the former channel. 



The old man stated that when he was a youth, he had heard 

 this from men who were then very old, and they said that Ten- 

 terden steeple was the cause of the obstruction and abandonment 

 of the ancient haven of Sandwich. The old man's evidence was 

 abruptly ended by a shout of derisive laughter, and he retired 

 abashed : and hence the saying is employed, as the learned Ray 

 informs us, when an absurd or ridiculous reason is assigned for 

 something in question. 



The historian Fuller both quaintly and truly remarks on this, 

 saying " that one story is good till another is told, and though 

 this be all whereupon this proverb is generally grounded, I met 

 since/' says he, " with a supplement thereunto ; it is this : — Time 

 out of mind, money was constantly collected out of this county 

 to fence the east banks thereof against the irruption of the sea, 

 and such sums were deposited in the hands of the Bishop of 

 Rochester. But because the sea had been quiet for many years 

 without any encroaching, the Bishop commuted (diverted) this 

 money to the building a steeple and endowing a church at Ten- 

 terden. By this diversion of the collection for the maintenance 

 of the banks, the sea afterwards brake in upon Goodwin's sands. 

 And now the old man had told a rational tale, had he found but 

 the due favour to finish it. And thus, sometimes, that is cause- 

 lessly accounted ignorance of the speaker, which is nothing but 

 impatience in the auditors, unwilling to attend to the end of the 

 discourse." 



What truth there may be in this traditionary and local saw of 

 the county, the narrator of the anecdote will not attempt to 

 clear up, but he can state with much confidence that the same 

 physical causes which have diverted the course of the river Stour 

 at Sandwich, so far from what probably was its direct and ancient 

 course to the sea, are still in operation ; and every year is in- 

 creasing the distance of the mouth of the harbour from the town 

 of Sandwich. On the western side of the river's mouth, there is 

 forming a mud-bank covered with Saltwort, as before said, and 

 on the east side the water is gradually encroaching on the land. 

 This process will continue, if the natural cause or agent is not 

 counteracted, to produce still greater effects, and tiie mouth of 



