AND BRITISH CHANNEL. 477 



of late years, the inhabitants have been under the 

 necessity of erecting bulwarks, to secure the walls 

 and approaches to their houses. At the village of 

 Kirkcolm, a neck of land called Scar- Ridge, ex- 

 tended into the loch about half a mile, on which 

 cattle used formerly to graze, which is now nearly 

 washed away, and in high tides is laid wholly un- 

 der water. Observations of a similar nature oc- 

 cur on various parts of the shores of the Frith of 

 Clyde, where they strike the mind with more force 

 than perhaps in any other part of the kingdom ; 

 for here the shores are not only comparatively 

 well sheltered, but the tides are so languid as to 

 rise only from nine to eleven feet perpendicular, 

 while the corresponding tides on the eastern coast 

 of Great Britain, rise from fourteen to sixteen 

 feet. 



Observations upon the wasting of the land by 

 the encroachment of the sea, might, with great 

 propriety, be made upon the shores of Ireland, of ireiancL 

 which I have seen many instances on the western, 

 northern and eastern coasts, from Loch Swilly, in 

 the county of Donegal, to the Tusker Rock, off 

 the coast of Wexford. But, without enlarging 

 upon these shores, we shall now turn our attention 

 to the coast of England, which, with the opposite Engian4, 

 shores of Holland and France, form the apices of 

 the German Ocean and British Channel. From 

 the more soft and yielding matters of w^hich these 

 shores are fornied, particularly those of England, 



