*^ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1 ^^8. 



A Sand-fiood at Downham, in Suffolk. By Thomjs Wright, Esq. 



N'' 37, p-722. 



•'>'ilt is but about 100 years since the sands first broke loose. I could not 

 without some difficulty trace out their original. But I now find it to be in 

 a warren in Lakenheath, distant about five miles south-west and by west of 

 Downham. There some great sand-hills, having the sward or superficies of the 

 ground broken by the impetuous south-west winds, blew upon some of the 

 adjacent grounds ; which being much of the same nature, and having nothing 

 but a thin crust of barren earth to secure it, was soon broken up, and thus 

 contributed to increase the mass. At the first eruption the whole magazine of 

 sand could not cover above eight or ten acres of ground ; which increased into 

 1000 acres before the sand had travelled four miles from its first situation. 

 Indeed it met with this advantage, that till it came into this town, all the 

 ground it passed over was almost of the same nature as itself. All the opposition 

 it met with in its progress hither, was from one farm house, which stood within 

 a mile and a half of its first source. It is between 30 and 40 years since it first 

 reached this town; where it continued for 10 or 12 years in the outskirts with- 

 out doing any considerable mischief. The reason of which seems to be, that 

 its current was then down hill, which sheltered it from those winds that gave it 

 motion. But that valley being once passed, it went above a mile up hill in two 

 months time, and overspread 200 acres of very good corn the same year. It is 

 now got into the body of this little town, where it has buried and destroyed 

 several tenements and other houses, and has forced us to preserve the re- 

 mainder at a greater charge than they are worth. Which doubtless had also 

 perished, had not my affection for this poor dwelling obliged me to preserve it 

 at a greater expense than it was built. Where at last I have given it some 

 check, though for four or five years our attacks on both sides were with so 

 various success that the victory remained very doubtful. For it had so possessed 

 all our avenues, that there was no passage to us but over two walls, of eight or 

 nine feet high, which encompassed a small grove before my house, now almost 

 buried in the sand; nay, it was once so near a conquest, that at one end of my 

 house it was possessed of my yard, and had blown up to the eves of most of my 

 out-houses. At the other end it had broken down my garden wall, and stopped 

 all passage that way. 



periment of transfusion does notrefiecl much credit on the judgment of Dr. Denis and his coadjutorj 

 for unless more blood was drawn from the man than was infused into him (which does not appear 

 to have been the case in the two first trials) a sudden and considerable plethora would be produced; a 

 change little suited to relieve a maniacal affection. 



