344 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



with the boat, it goes all the faster for the tilt ; if it is 

 against her, they avoid it as far as regards the tilt, by 

 lowering the same. We now went on before down to 

 Gravesend, there to wait for the ship, which was soon 

 to follow, and in the interval we had the opportunity of 

 seeing the country round Gravesend. 



The ist July. 



The country round Gravesend is at once the prettiest 

 and the most delightful that can be imagined. It goes 

 here in hills up and down, all divided into small ploughed 

 fields, meadows, pastures, gardens, tragardar, &c, by 

 quickset hedges, lefvande hackar. The hills are 

 mostly of chalk, krita. The whole south side of the 

 Thames consists of bare chalk, and here there is one 

 chalk pit beside another, where chalk and flint are taken. 



Papaver erraticum, 428 [P. Phoeas, Red Poppy] was 

 here among the wheat and beans the rankest weed. I 

 have never seen it in such abundance as here in the arable 

 fields, for its beautiful red flowers seemed absolutely to 

 cover the fields, but for small pleasure or profit to the 

 owners, because it both smothered the crop, and was, 

 for its untold multitudes of seeds, next to impossible to 



eradicate. 



The 2nd July. 



Jord-vallar vid bradden af Thames. 



Earth-walls on the banks of the Thames. 



In the afternoon we walked along the earth-walls 

 which were cast up on the banks or sides of the river 

 Thames to prevent the water at high tide from overflow- 

 ing the adjacent meadows on both sides of the river. It 

 is well known that at this place there is ebb and flood, 

 ebb och. flod, fluxus et refluxus maris, so that the water 

 in the Thames stream for six hours falls rapidly [T. I. p. 

 477] outwards and goes lower, and for the next six hours 



