128 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1704. 



from it at least 2 miles. And to me a probable reason of this Fort being 

 accounted in Essex, is the sands here subsiding, made at first an island, which 

 being nearest to Essex was accounted of that country; or 2dly, the island so 

 made belonging to none but the crown, it was at the pleasure of the king's 

 officers to call it of which county they pleased. Nor was it Mr. Tayler's igno- 

 rance (as this author says) that made him mention these stones as petrifactions 

 made by the sea. For, in his aforesaid collections, he did not omit the tra- 

 dition the inhabitants of this town have, about the alteration of the mouth 

 of this Haven, as appears from his own words: " It is generally believed, that 

 Stoure did formerly, in a straighter current, discharge itself into the sea about 

 Hoasley-Bay, under the Highland of Walton-Colness and Felix-Stow, in the 

 county of Suffolk, between which and Languard Fort are (it is said) certain 

 remains of the old channel, which the neighbouring inhabitants still call fleets, 

 retaining at this day the tradition of the course of the water, and the entrance 

 into this Haven to have heretofore been by and through them." 



And I am of opinion that this tradition is matter of fact, having before 

 hinted what mutations the mouths of great rivers daily undergo by the lodg- 

 ment of sands, &c. which may be assigned as a better reason for this alteration, 

 than that of our author, i. e. that it was artificial; and the yearly washing of 

 the cliff on the Harwich side likewise adds to its probability ; it being a con- 

 stant observation, that where the sea gains on one side, it loses on the other. 

 And that this level was so made, I am confirmed by the modern removal of the 

 Fort more toward the point, and that more sand was added after the old Fort 

 was built: this alteration is noticed by Mr. Tayler in these words, " And 

 although several now living pretend to remember the building of Languard 

 Fort, yet we find there was an older Fort thereabouts, Anno 1553, and called 

 by the same name, which was not far distant from this modern one, a little 

 north of it, where are still to be seen two faces and flanks of a bastion, the 

 rest of it being worn away by the sea, but in its stead it has left upon the shore 

 a long row of sand banks." 



The spring mentioned by Mr. Edmund Gibson, in his English edition of 

 Cambden, from the aforesaid manuscript of Mr. Silas Tayler, is a very small 

 inconsiderable thing ; nor could I observe that it did petrify or incrustate either 

 pieces of wood or sticks; but I have a piece, which I broke off from a large 

 pile on that shore, which was petrified so far as it was driven into the earth, 

 and the sea water came; and I suspect there yet remains some others of 

 the same. ^ 



I have already noticed, that the fossil shells are imbedded in a loose stratum of 

 sand, gravel, &c. which may serve to demonstrate, that their matrix is not a 



