WASTE OF COAST-LINE 21 



water are mainly traceable to the inevitable process of 

 obliteration which sooner or later befalls all lakes great 

 and small. Detritus is swept into them by rain and 

 wind from the surrounding slopes and shores. Every 

 brook that enters them is engaged in filling them 

 up. The marsh-loving vegetation which grows along 

 their shallow margins likewise aids in diminishing 

 them. Man, too, lends his help in the same task. 

 In early times he built his pile-dwellings in the 

 lakes, and for many generations continued to cast 

 his refuse into their waters. In later days he has 

 taken the more rapid and effectual methods of 

 drainage, and has turned the desiccated bottoms into 

 arable land. 



In connection with the geological changes that have 

 affected the general surface of the country since the 

 beginning of history, reference may here be made to 

 those which have taken place on the coast-line. Stand- 

 ing as it does amid stormy seas and rapid tidal currents, 

 Britain has for ages suffered much from the attacks 

 of the ocean. More especially has the loss of land 

 fallen along our eastern shores. Ever since the sub- 

 mergence of the North Sea and the cutting through 

 of the Strait of Dover, the soft rocks that form 

 our sea-board facing the mainland of Europe have 

 been a prey to the restless waves. Within the last 

 few centuries whole parishes, with their manors, farms, 

 hamlets, villages, and churches have been washed away ; 

 and the fisherman now casts his nets and baits his 

 lines where his forefathers ploughed their fields and 

 delved their gardens. And the destruction still goes 

 on. In some places a breadth of as much as five 



