1863.] NORFOLK BOTANY. 433 



Near Norwich, on the west, the rich meadows again appear on 

 the two branches of the Yare, which unite below this city, and 

 flow through the centre of the extensive and valuable tract of 

 marsh which extends to Yarmouth. 



With the exception of some high land about Buckenhara and 

 Eeedham, this is a treeless flat, intersected by ditches, and grazed 

 by countless herds of cattle and horses, or it is shut up from cat- 

 tle, and its produce converted into hay. 



The fens appear (invariably ?) wherever there is a considerable 

 stream or river. These flats border the Little Ouse, the Yare, 

 the Waveney, and the Bure, and betAveen these broad fens there 

 are narrow strips of cornland or inconsiderably elevated flats, 

 several of which, as about Belton, St. Olave's, Lowestoft, Car- 

 ton, etc., are still in their natural condition^ sandy heaths fringed 

 with boggy meadows. 



The produce of the fenny tracts will gradually fertilize the 

 sands which lie between them ; and all the lands of Norfolk and 

 Sufiblk are destined to produce heavy crops of barley, and suSi- 

 cient supplies of wheat for their own population, and plenty of 

 oats for their horses. 



If we can credit the wonderful revelations of geology, — and 

 they are said to be both credible and incontrovertible, — we may 

 easily comprehend the formation of this county while its fenny 

 parts were many fathoms under water, and its heaths or elevated 

 flats were not quite emerged from the ocean, but were the re- 

 sorts of myriads of soles, flounders, cod, haddock, herrings, etc. 

 The extent of the Wash, or broad estuary, the common recep- 

 tacle of all the rivers which drain the eastern lowlands, from 

 Safiron Walden and Bedford on the south, to Lincoln on the 

 north, is constantly diminishing, and the land is consequently 

 increasing. The same change is taking place, though ou a 

 smaller scale, about Yarmouth, where the sea is retiring from its 

 margin, and the land is gradually and sensibly increased. 



Besides this addition to the sandy shores by the retirement of 

 the sea, or rather by its incessant operation of constructing a bar- 

 rier against its own restless activities at this particular point, the 

 process, going on far beyond the present roadstead for ships, is 

 probably very much greater. The sandbanks constituting the 

 dangers and terrors of navigation on the Norfolk and Suffolk 

 coasts, when sufficiently elevated, will become islands, and 



N. S. VOL. VI. 3 K 



