AND BRITISH CHANNEL. 483 



extremely difficult, irksome and hazardous. Some 

 pretty extensive additions have also been made 

 to the land in this neighbourhood, at the junc- 

 tion of the rivers Aide and Butley, in the great 

 gravelly beach which extends no less than about 

 eight or ten miles in length, varying in breadth 

 from a few hundred feet to about a mile ; and 

 similar appearances are to be found on this coast, 

 as at Harwich, near the confluence of the ri- 

 vers Stour and Ipswich, where a considerable 

 addition has been made to the land on the 

 southern side of Landguardfort : yet these, and 

 other examples of the same kind, are trifling, 

 in proportion to the astonishing effects of the sea 

 in destroying the land in this very neighbourhood. 

 Near Leostoffe, Dunwich, and Aldborough Castle, 

 on the Suffolk coast, the sea is daily making im- 

 pressions upon the land, which is apparent to the 

 observation of every one acquainted in the slight- 

 est degree with that coast, and is at some places 

 severely felt by the proprietor, or even by the te- 

 nant during the short endurance of his lea^e-hold. 

 At the Naze Tov^^er, near Walton, and indeed all 

 along the coast of Essex, the same appearances are 

 no less obvious. Crossing the numerous sand- Kent, 

 banks and shoals which greatly encumber the 

 mouth of the River Thames to the Kentish 

 coast, we are every where presented with instances 

 of the degradation of the land by the encroach- 

 ment of the sea. From Sheerness along tlic 



