no Lincolnshire Notes & Queries . 



of the Danes the Wash still flowed up to Lincoln. For many 

 thousands of years the Wash has gradually silted up from 

 natural causes, until it has reached its present dimensions. 



So much for the past. As to the future, it is said to be 

 prudent not to prophesy unless you know. 



Seeing that, early in the reign of Her Majesty, an Act of 

 Parliament was passed to enable a company of adventurers to 

 enclose the Wash by a bank extending from Lincolnshire to 

 Norfolk, and that they were only stopped from carrying the 

 work into effect by want of funds, and seeing that Nature is 

 taking the matter into its own hands by rapidly silting up the 

 Wash, I think that I may safely prophesy that many of those 

 who do me the honour to read this article will live to see the 

 Wash once more dry land, and the coast of Lincolnshire once 

 more joined to that of Norfolk. 



THE STORY OF THE LINCOLN GAP. 



THE Presidential Address on this subject, delivered at 

 Lincoln in 1895, and re-published in the Natural 

 History section of Notes and Queries^ in the October 

 number of last year, is of great and wide-spreading interest. 

 The author's (Mr. J. M. Burton) object is to prove that the 

 Trent once flowed through the gap on which Lincoln is built. 



Quoting from Mr. Jukes Brown, he gives several proofs of 

 his assertion, and we cannot but admire the practised manner 

 in which the quarry is scented step by step by means of the 

 ancient gravel deposits found between the great gap in the 

 oolitic escarpment at Lincoln and the river Trent. 



Mr. Burton is of opinion that the course of the Trent was 

 changed in pre-glacial times, whilst Mr. Jukes Brown, he 

 tells us, suggests that the change took place in a post-glacial 

 period. 



There are reasons to suppose that the view taken by the 

 latter is the more likely one. Some of these I will briefly 

 mention. 



I. The village of Holme now consolidated with Langford 

 (both being on the east of the river) formerly went with 



