NOTES AKD QUERIES. 
275 
througli 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 su.ch a conjuncture of svmshine 
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 
which 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 Eoman 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 Avith the 
wind, lay uppermost, and the hard coat of pot-earth might then be made ; 
for pot-earth, dissolved in w ater and viewed by a microscope, is but im- 
palpable fine sand, Avhich 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 difiiculty. 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, which was the last, and whore nothing was ex- 
pected to interrupt, he fell, in ])rosecuting 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 potter3'-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 walls 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 simk a pit of eighteen feet square, wharf- 
ing up the sand with timber, till he came, forty feet lower, into water and 
sea-shells, where there was a firm sea-beach, which confirmed w hat was 
before asserted, that the sea had been, in ages past, where 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-east coin 
of the quire stands very firm, and no doubt will stand." — (From ' Parentalia ; 
or. Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens,' pp. 285, 286. By Christopher 
Wren, son of Sir Christopher Wren, late Surveyor-General of Royal 
Buildings. London : 1750.) 
