296 KAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



situated at not more than six miles from Saint Malo, 

 are probable rather than certain facts, but in Sain- 

 tonge one cannot entertain any doubt in regard to 

 the erosive power of the waves. Here important 

 towns have crumbled with the cliffs that over- 

 hung them, and the ocean, after having reduced their 

 ruins into dust, is every day carrying away some 

 fragments from the districts surrounding them. 

 History has preserved to us the names and annals 

 of these towns ; and, guided by the light which she fur- 

 nishes, we may readily trace the sinuosities of the 

 ancient shore by the inequalities of the bottom of the 

 ocean, as it is laid down on the charts of M. Beau- 

 temps-Beaupre. 



About nine miles to the south of La Kochelle lies 

 the point of Chatelaillon, which is separated from the 

 island of Aix by an arm of the sea which is about 

 6000 or 7000 yards across. In the middle ages a high 

 road passed from the one to the other on which were 

 situated two towns. The existence of Montmeillan 

 is only known to us by an authentic proces-verbal re- 

 corded by one of the old annalists of La Rochelle.* 

 It is different, however, with Chatelaillon, which 



* Amos Barbot, quoted by Arcere, who has frequently referred to 

 his manuscript. The following is an extract from this proces- 

 verbal : " The town of Montmeillan was situated between Chate- 

 laillon and the Isle of Aix, to which said city and island one might 

 walk on land and dry-footed at low tide, according to the state- 

 ments of old people who have themselves made this journey." This 

 proces-verbal bears the date of 1430, and from these statements 

 we are led to conclude that within a hundred years before that 

 epoch, that is to say, in the course of the fourteenth century, a com- 

 munication existed between the island and the continent. 



