APPENDIX. 181 



of the youthful reader, I may be permitted to quote 

 a few passages which relate to this topic. 



Plato and Pliny, among ancient authors, give many 

 wonderful statements of the sea swallowing up cer- 

 tain lands and cities, as well as lofty mountains, in 

 various parts of Europe. And the old historian Cam- 

 den observes : 



" We may gather from the words of Giraldus, that 

 Cape St David's once extended further into the sea, 

 and that the form of the promontory has been altered. 

 When Henry the Second was in Ireland, by reason of 

 an extraordinary violence of storms, the sandy shores 

 of this coast were laid bare, and the face of the land 

 appeared, which had been covered for many ages, 

 also the trunks of trees which had been cut down, 

 standing in the midst of the sea, with the strokes of the 

 axe as fresh as if they had been cut yesterday, with 

 very black earth, and several old blocks like ebony; 

 so that it did not appear like the sea-shore, but rather 

 resembled a grove by a miraculous metamorphosis, 

 perhaps, ever since the time of the deluge, or long 

 after, at least very anciently cut down and con- 

 sumed, and swallowed up by degrees, by the violence 

 of the sea continually encroaching upon and washing 

 off the land." 



Scotland has suffered severely from this dreadful 

 enemy. Even so late as 1769, an estate near Forres, 

 worth at one time three hundred pounds per annum, 

 was entirely overwhelmed and destroyed. So rapid 

 were the encroachments of the sand, which came upon 



