118 THE SEA-COAST. 



CHAPTER IV. 

 THE SEA-COAST. 



OUSE and Trent meet on nearly equal terms, and HUMBER 

 is constituted by their united waters. Trent draws from the 

 heart of England the drainage of 4500 square miles; Ouse 

 collects from Yorkshire alone supplies from 4100 square miles. 

 Ouse brings more water, because it is fed by higher mountains 

 and more rainy countries. 



Brough Ferry, the point where the Romans crossed the Hum- 

 ber, is by many writers vainly thought to be the Petouaria of 

 Ptolemy. An imperfect inscription found here 



BREXARC 



has been read Brexarum, as the name of the place, and Breto- 

 num Exarchus, for the commander of a district in Britain. 



Hessle, further down the estuary, which derives its German 

 name from the abundance of flints (Kiesel), deserves the atten- 

 tion of geologists from the fact that a deposit of these flints 

 lying on the chalk, and containing bones of elephant, horse, 

 stag, &c., is covered by the glacial drift of boulder clay. 



KiNGSTON-upoN-HtiLL, the great port for the Baltic and 

 Greenland trade, derives its importance from the little river 

 which here finds a channel through warp land to the tide, and 

 gives some space for the crowded shipping. 



No river was so convenient to the sea-kings of the North as 

 the Humber, from which, by the Trent, they navigated into the 

 heart of Mercia, and by the Ouse penetrated to the richest 

 parts of Northumbria. Hither Anglians, Danes, and Northmen 

 directed their chiules, the moment the Roman legions were 

 withdrawn : landing where they chose, the whole country was 

 their prey. The most ancient port on the Humber was, just at 



