EFFECTS OF DRIFTED SAND. 47 



hills, composed of sand and marine shells, several 

 hundreds of feet above the level of the sea. By 

 the shifting of these sands, the ruins of buildings 

 which once occupied the land have been dis- 

 covered, and the remains of wells formed by the 

 ancient inhabitants. Among the ruins thus laid 

 bare are those of an ancient chapel, erected, 

 there is every reason to believe, by Piranus or 

 St. Piran, one of the most zealous of the early 

 Christian missionaries in Britain, who in the 

 fourth century fixed his abode in this remote 

 region of England, and devoted his life to the 

 instruction of its rude inhabitants, as Ninian, 

 Kentigern, and Columba did in the western dis- 

 tricts of Scotland. On the coast of Norfolk the 

 same cause has produced great devastation ; and at 

 Eccles, already mentioned, large mounds of blown 

 sand occupy the places of houses which existed in 

 the beginning of the seventeenth century. About 

 twenty years ago the force of the waves laid open 

 the foundations of one of the houses which had 

 thus been overwhelmed by the sand-flood, the 

 upper part of which appeared to have been pulled 

 down before it was finally overwhelmed. Even the 

 body of the old church of Eccles has been buried 

 under the sand, and nothing now remains but its 

 tower to point out the place where the old inhabi- 

 tants were wont to assemble for worship, and all 

 around it is completely desolate. 



The changes thus effected on various parts of 

 our own sea-shores, by the agency of drifted sand, 

 have also occurred on the shores of France and 



