264 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



I. Notes on the Marine Denudation of the Friesian Islands. 

 By Dr Egbert Brown. 



For some years past I have devoted a few weeks each 

 autumn to an examination of the action of the sea on the 

 Continental shores opposite the British Islands. Either on 

 foot, in row-boats, or by the ordinary conveyances, I have 

 surveyed from this point of view most parts of the coast-line 

 from Holland to Denmark. And though my work is not yet 

 complete, I think that it may possibly be interesting to the 

 Society to hear some of the results of this examination. For 

 this purpose I have selected a few particulars from a good 

 series of notes, some of which I published from time to time 

 in a series of letters to the editor of the Scotsman, and which 

 are still lying unprinted in my note-books. This study 

 rendered it compulsory on me not only to examine the actual 

 coast, but to study the numerous records of the different 

 invasions of the sea, and compare the writings of the chroni- 

 clers with what we actually see at the present time of the 

 remains of the catastrophes described by them. This I dis- 

 covered at an early stage of my work was very necessary, in 

 so far that the descriptions which are published in the 

 ordinary works on physical geography — especially English 

 books, without an exception — are not only incomplete, but 

 erroneous and misleading. On the low sandy coast of Ger- 

 many and Holland the action of the sea is unmarked. Hol- 

 land is indeed, as all the world knows, simply protected from 

 the inroads of the German Ocean either by dykes or sand- 

 banks, both of which are sometimes broken through. On 

 the shores of the Zuyder Zee the fight between sea and land 

 is especially evident in the ruined ports and " dead cities," 

 once most populous centres of commerce in the Middle Ages, 

 but which are now deserted, owing to the harbours being 

 shoaled up. But it is on the chain of outlying islands that 

 we see the deadly action of the sea most marked. 



From the Dutch to the Danish coast, off the mainland, 

 there lies a breastwork of islands. They commence with 

 Texel, near the northern point of Holland, and are continued 



