GREAT RISE OF THE OCEAN. 359 



banks of sand and mud, whence they had been drawn, 

 by the long course of ordinary causes. Such were the 

 dreadful accidents to which the first settlers on these 

 lands were exposed ; but no sooner were they over, than 

 ordinary causes began again to act ; the sand-banks rose ; 

 their surface was covered with grass ; the coast was thus 

 extended, and new islands were formed ; time effaced the 

 impression of past misfortunes ; and those among the 

 inhabitants of these dangerous soils, who had been able 

 to save themselves on the coast, ventured to return to 

 settle on them again, and had time to multiply, before 

 the recurrence of the same catastrophes. 



This has been the general course of events on all the 

 coasts of the North Sea, and particularly on those of 

 the countries of Sleswigh and Holstein. It is thus that 

 the origin and progress of the art of dikes will supply us* 

 with a very interesting chronometer in the history of the 

 continent and of man, particularly exemplified in this 

 part of the globe. A Lutheran clergyman, settled in the 

 island of Nord Strand, having collected all the particu- 

 lars of this history which the documents of the country 

 could afford, published it in 1668, in a German work, 

 entitled The North Frisian Chronicle. It was chiefly 

 from this work, and from the Chronicle of Darikwerth, 

 that M. Hartz extracted the information which he gave 

 to me, accompanied by two maps, copied for me, by 

 one of his sons, from those of Johannes Mayerus, a ma- 

 thematician ; they bear the title of Frisia Cimbrica ; one 

 of them respecting the state of the islands and of the 

 coast, in 1 240, as it may be traced in the chronicles, and 

 the other, as it was in 1651. 



According to these documents, the first inhabitants 



