VOL. II.] 



PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 



265 



But by stopping of it four or five years with furze hedges, set upon one 

 another, as fast as the sand levelled them, by which I have raised sand-banks 

 near 20 yards high, I brought it into the circuit of about eight or 10 acres: And 

 then in one year, by laying some hundreds of loads of muck and good earth 

 upon it, I have again reduced it to terra Jirma, have cleared all my walls, and 

 by the assistance and kindness of my neighbours, who helped me away with 

 above 1 500 loads in one month, cut a passage to my house through the main 

 body of it. 



But the other end of the town met with a much worse fate, where divers 

 dwellings are buried or overthrown, and our pastures and meadows over-run 

 and destroyed : and the branch of the river Ouse, on which we border, for three 

 miles together so filled with sand, that now a vessel with two loads weight passes 

 with as much difficulty as before with 10. And had not the stream interposed 

 to stop its passage into Norfolk, doubtless a great part of that country had ere 

 now been left a desolate trophy of this conquering enemy. 



The situation of the country in which these sands took their rise, lies east- 

 north-east of a part of the great level of the fens, and is thereby fully exposed 

 to the rage of those impetuous blasts, which yearly blow from the opposite 

 quarter, and which I suppose acquire more than an ordinary vigour by passing 

 through so long a tract without any check. Another thing that contributes to 

 it, is the extreme sandiness of the soil, the lightness of which I believe gave 

 occasion to that story of the actions that used to be brought in Norfolk for 

 grounds blown out of the owner's possession. 



Of the Magnetical Variation, and the Tides, near BristoL By Capt. 

 Sam. Sturmv, N" 37, p. 726. 



June 13, 1666, Capt. Sturmy made the following magnetical observations in 

 Rownham meadows, near Bristol, by the water-side. 



VOL. I. 



Ll 



