542 



IMBEDDING OF THE EEMAINS OF MAN AND 



XLT 



number 



Moraysh 



Wear 



and no less than twentj-one bridges were destroyed in the 

 courses of these rivers. At the village of Bywell the flood 

 tore the dead bodies and coffins out of the churchyard, and 

 bore them away, together with many of the living inhabit- 



ants. 



tempest an immense 



horses, and sheep were also transported to the sea, while the 

 whole coast was covered with the wreck of ships. Four cen- 

 turies before (in 1338), the same district had been visited by 

 a similar continuance of heavy rains followed by disastrous 

 floods, and it is not improbable that these catastrophes 

 may recur periodically, though after uncertain intervals. 

 As the population increases, and buildings and bridges are 

 multiplied, we must expect the loss of lives and property to 

 augment."^ 



if human hodies in the hed of 

 ■ human bodies committed to 



If to 



r 



way of ordinary burial we add those of individuals lost by 

 shipwrecks, we shall find that, in the course of a single 

 year, a great number of human remains are consigned to 

 the subaqueous regions. I shall hereafter advert to a calcu- 

 lation by which it appears that more than 500 British yesseh 

 alone, averaging each a burden of about 120 tons, were 

 wrecked, and sunk to the bottom, annually between the 



years 1793 and 1829. Of these the crews for the 



most 



sometimes 



In one 



great naval action several thousand individuals sometimes 

 share a watery grave. 



Many of these corpses are instantly devoured by predaceous 

 fish, sometimes before they reach the bottom ; still more 

 frequently when they rise again to the surface, and float in a 

 state of putrefaction. Many decompose on the floor of the 

 ocean, where no sediment is thrown down upon them ; but 

 if they fall upon a reef where corals and shells are becoming 

 ao'o-lutinated into a solid rock, or subside where the delta of 



f 



I 



^ Scots Mae:, vol, xxxiii. 1771. 



4 



\ 



