Pe 2 4: LAW D NI 
the latter) is another memorial of the junction of the two countries; a narrow 
fubmarine hill, called the Rip-raps, about a quarter of a mile broad, and ten 
miles long, extending eaftwards towards the Gosdwin Sands. Its materials are 
boulder-ftones, adventitious to many ftrata, The depth of water on it, in very 
low fpring-tides, is only fourteen feet. The fifhermen from Foli/fone have often 
touched it with a fifteen feet oar ; fo that it is juftly the dread of navigators. Many 
a tall fhip has perifhed on it, and funk inftantly into twenty-one fathoms water. 
In Fuly 1782, the Belleifle of fixty-four guns ftruck, and lay on it during three 
hours ; but, by ftarting her beer and water, got clear off. : 
Thefe celebrated ftreights are only twenty-one miles wide in the narroweft part. Wiprn or tHe 
From the-pier at Dover to that at Calais is twenty-four. It is conjectured, that STREIGHTS. 
their breadth leflens, and that they are two miles narrower than they were in 
antient times. An accurate obferver of fifty years, remarks to me, that the 
encreafed height of water, from a decreafe of breadth, has been apparent even in 
that {pace. The depth of the channel, at a medium, in higheft fpring-tides, is 
about twenty-five fathoms. The bottom, either coarfe fand or rugged fcars, 
which have for ages unknown refifted the attrition of the currents. From the 
ftreights, both eaftward and weftward, is a gradual increafe of deptir thorough Derr, 
the channel to a hundred fathoms, till foundings are totally loft or unattend- 
ed to. 
The fpring-tides in the ftreights rife, on an average, twenty-four feet ; the 
neap-tides fifteen. The tide hows from the German fea, pafles the ftreights, and 
meets, with a great rippling, the weftern tide from the ocean, between Fairleigh, 
near Haflings, and Bologne * ; a proof, that if the feparation of the land was ef- 
feéted by the feas, it muft have been by the overpowering weight of thofe of the 
north. 
It is moft certain, that Britain was peopled from Gaul. Similar cuftoms, as BRITAIN, WHENCE 
far as can be collected, evince this fa&. The period is beyond the reach of PEOPLEDs 
hiftory. 
RIP-RAPS, 
* All the intelligence refpecting the tides, &c. in thefe parts, I received from Mr. Fames Hammond 
of the cuftom-houfe, Dower, and Mr, Wilkam Cowly, a veteran pilot of the fame place. 
a2 Beyond ™ 
