ENCROACHMENTS OF THE SEA. 41 



of the present age asserts that " if the present rate 

 of destruction should continue, we might calculate 

 the period, and that not a very remote one, when 

 the whole island will be annihilated." The church 

 of Eeculver, too, affords a remarkable instance to 

 the same effect. A view taken of it so lately as 

 1781, and published in the " Grentleman's Maga- 

 zine," represents it as at a considerable distance 

 from the shore ; but it now stands close to a pre- 

 cipice, and a few years it is probable will complete 

 its destruction. The church was abandoned in 

 1804, part of the churchyard and the adjoining 

 houses having been demolished by the sea. 



The sea-shores of Lincolnshire have been the 

 scene of very remarkable changes from age to 

 age. Consisting of the deposits of the tertiary 

 formation, and of marine detritus, the shores of 

 Lincolnshire are so low that, as on the Dutch 

 coast, embankments are necessary to keep off the 

 sea. Parts of the fenny tract of land on the coast 

 were in remote ages covered with forests, subse- 

 quently inundated, and again reclaimed from the 

 sea. Some of the fens are understood to have 

 been drained and embanked so recently as the 

 time of the Eomans, and that after their depar- 

 ture from England the sea again took possession 

 of the land they had cultivated, and covered large 

 tracts of it with beds of silt and marine shells, but 

 that the lands thus lost a-re once more rendered 

 productive. Independent of such alternations, 

 great devastation has been caused on the coast of 

 Lincolnshire by the inroads of the sea, several 



