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the rich Lincolnshire lowlands before the close of the first 
century, when they, no doubt, soon experienced considerable 
inconvenience from occasional irruptions of the sea, and 
from almost unceasing floods of fresh-water ; but as they 
never submitted to such difficulties without a struggle, in 
which they were usually successful, they in this instance 
proceeded to encircle the whole coast of their new possession 
with a vast sea bank, capable of resisting all further encroach- 
ments of the sea,* and to deepen and defend the outfalls of 
its rivers. Next they began to gather up the valuable land 
they had by so much labour secured, and by the formation 
of a main drain, fifty-seven miles long, called the " Car 
Dyke," reaching from the Nen to the Witham, which caught 
all the waters flowing from the higher lands before they 
spread themselves over the lowlands, and by other drains, 
they completely secured for themselves the territorial fruits 
of their patient and enormous labours. 
But, besides the coastal line of fen lands, there are vast 
tracts in the interior of Lincolnshire of a similar character, 
forming together an aggregate of 522,000 acres, lying from 
four to sixteen feet below high water level. The largest of 
these extends from the Trent through the Isle of Axholme 
into Notts, and far into Yorkshire, in the direction of 
Doncaster ; De la Pryme, in his Paper on Hatfield Chase, 
(Philosophical Transactions, No. 275, p. 980j) observing, — 
* It is interesting to observe how cleverly the Romans took advantage of all 
such assistance from the hand of nature as could be rendered available in aiding 
them to form this marine barrier, incorporating in their work, as they did, every 
sand bank or range of Dunes tossed up upon the shore by the united agency of 
tides and violent winds, so as to save labour. In Tetney parish, one of these 
banks, about three acres in extent, and fourteen feet high, has thus been made 
use of, (still bearing distinct evidences of having been occupied by the Britons,) 
in the form of five circles of earth, from one to two feet high, and from twenty- 
nine to thirty-eight feet in diameter; and on a similar adjoining bank, upwards 
of four acres in extent, and divided from the first by a little streamlet, is another 
circle, thirty-six feet in diameter ; and a large oval one, sixty-five feet long, by 
forty-seven in width. 
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