Dr Brown on Marine De7iudation of the Friesian Islands. 269 



we find mucli about the English, though some of the notices 

 are very mysterious. For instance, about the date I have 

 mentioned, Christianity got established among the Friesians, 

 though they were always reverting to the worship of Odin, 

 and more particularly to that of Fossita or Freya (for Fossita 

 was only her priestess) on Heligoland. Then arrived an 

 English arcliitect, or " Baumeister," to erect churches to 

 accommodate the new converts. This gentleman — name 

 unknown — is said to have ridden on horseback from one 

 island to another. All the mediaeval historians are full of 

 records of floods — in fact, piracy, floods, and fighting fill the 

 annals over which I spent the wet days and the lengthening 

 nights of last autumn. Everything seems to have been 

 arranged for the future, as in some of the islands is yet the 

 case, with the proviso of " barring floods." 



You are often close upon some of these Hallige before they 

 can be seen, so little are they raised above the sea. None of 

 them are more than six feet above the " Wattenmeer " around 

 them ; few^ are elevated half that height. Every year they 

 are wearing away on all sides, except on the eastern shores. 

 Little canals are also being here and there dug into them by 

 the tide, the end of which generally is that the tiny islet 

 splits into two smaller ones, and eventually becomes a mere 

 sandbank, hated by the seamen whose infrequent keels plough 

 this solitary part of the German Ocean. It is calculated, 

 judging from a map of 1713, that the Hallige, taken together, 

 have decreased by one-half in the last 160 years. Two of 

 that period (Kingstness and Hainshallig) have altogether 

 disappeared, and Behnshallig is fast going. The soil on all of 

 them is a rich clayey marsh, except on Xordstrandischmoor, 

 This Hallig, in days prior to the deluge of 1634, formed part 

 of the Moor of Xordstrand, and for long after that event it 

 was covered with blaeberry and heatlier. But necessity com- 

 pelled the " AViecklinge " who fled to it to bring soil from 

 the mainland, and now the old heath is almost covered up 

 with marsh, owing to the sapping of the tide. Under the 

 peat and sand are, however, traces of ditches and the plough, 

 pointing to a period regarding which history has left us no 

 record. Such are the Hallige — strange enough in themselves 

 VOL. IV. 2 c 



