NOTES AND QUERIES. 



275 



through which the river found its way ; but at low-water, as often as it 

 happened in summer-weather, when the sun dried the surface of the sand 

 and a strong wind happened at the same time, before the flood came on, 

 the sand would drive with the wind and raise heaps, and in time large 

 and lofty sand-hills ; for so are the sand-hills raised upon the opposite coasts 

 of Flanders and Holland. The sands, upon such a conjuncture of sunshine 

 and wind, drive in visible clouds ; this might be the effect of many ages 

 before history, and yet without having recourse to the flood. This 

 mighty broad sand (now good meadow) was restrained by large banks 

 still remaining, and reducing the river to its channel ; a great work, of 

 wdiich history gives no account. The Britons were too rude to attempt it ; 

 the Saxons too much busied with continued wars ; he therefore concluded 

 it was a Roman work : one little breach in his time cost £7000 to restore. 

 The sand-hill at Paul's, in the time of the Roman colony, was about twelve 

 feet lower than now it is ; and the finer sand, easier driving with the 

 wind, lay uppermost, and the hard coat of pot-earth might then be made ; 

 for pot-earth, dissolved in water and viewed by a microscope, is but im- 

 palpable fine sand, which with fire will vitrify ; and of this earth upon the 

 place were those urns, sacrificing vessels, and other pottery-ware made, 

 which, as noted before, were found here in great abundance, more espe- 

 cially towards the north-east of the ground. 



" In the progress of the works of the foundations the surveyor met with 

 one unexpected difficulty. He began to dig the foundations from the 

 west end, and had proceeded successfully through the dome to the east 

 end, -where the brick-earth bottom was yet very good ; but as he went on 

 to the north-east corner, wmich was the last, and where nothing was ex- 

 pected to interrupt, he fell, in prosecuting the design, upon a pit where all 

 the pot-earth had been robbed by the potters of old time. Here were dis- 

 covered quantities of urns, broken vessels, and pottery-ware of divers 

 sorts and shapes. How far this pit extended northward there was no oc- 

 casion to examine : no ox-skulls, horns of stags, tusks of boars, were found 

 to corroborate the accounts of Stow, Camden, and others ; nor any foun- 

 dations more eastward. If there was formerly a temple to Diana, he sup- 

 posed it might have been within the w 7 alls of the colony, and more to the 

 south. It was no little perplexity to fall in this at last ; he wanted but 

 six or seven feet to compleat the design, and this fell in the very angle 

 north-east ; he knew very well that under the layer of pot-earth there was 

 no other good ground to be found till he came to the low-water mark of 

 the Thames, at least forty feet lower. His artificers proposed to him to 

 pile, which he refused ; for though piles may last for ever when always in 

 water (otherwise London Bridge would fall), yet if they are driven through 

 dry sand, though sometimes moist, they will rot: his endeavours were to 

 build for eternity. He therefore sunk a pit of eighteen feet square, wharf- 

 ing up the sand with timber, till he came, forly feet lower, into water and 

 sea-shells, where there was a firm sea-beach, which confirmed what was 

 before asserted, that the sea had been, in ages past, w r here now Paul's is. 

 He bored through this beach till he came to the original clay ; being then 

 satisfied, he began from the beach a square pier of solid good masonry, ten 

 feet square, till he came within fifteen feet of the present ground, then he 

 turned a short arch underground to the former foundation, which was 

 broken off by the untoward accident of the pit. Thus the north-cast coin 

 of the quire stands very firm, and no doubt will stand." — (From ' Parentalia ; 

 or, Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens,' pp. 285, 2S6. By Christopher 

 Wren, son of Sir Christopher Wren, late Surveyor-General of Royal 

 Buildings. London : 1750.) 



