86 
is not felt. In Ileigliam Sounds we have an accumulation of 
twenty feet of mud. During the winter, the floods bring down 
great quantities of mud, and the surplus water fills the Broads, and 
precipitate it along their floors, except in those wliere the current 
is strong enough to prevent it by carrying it away. Hence it is 
that our Broads have become shallower. The rich mud and the 
shallowness have favoured the growth of the aquatic vegetation, 
and thus deposition and carbonaceous accumulation have every year 
been doing their utmost to fill up and contract the areas of these 
lakes. My friend, the Eev. J ohn Gunn, has given a lucid account 
of the rapid growth of peat along the margins of the Broads, in 
his Essay on the “ Geology of Norfolk,” and we all knoAv what 
excellent opportunities such a careful observer has had of recording 
the facts. Whilst the average rain-fall of the county is not quite 
twenty-five inches, Mr. Hawkshaw tells us that it has been found, 
from actual experience, that the evaporation from such Broads as 
that of Ormesby, is not less than thirty inches. This, again, 
favours the process of filling up. 
It is very evident that, just after the severance of England from 
the Continent, our Broads must have been very different things to 
the shallow, contracted objects they now are. The marsh land on 
either side the Yare, down to Yannouth, when dug into, is seen to 
be nothing more or less than drained peat, more or less full of 
fresh-water shells. In fact, the whole of the low-lying land must 
have been covered by water, especially as the tidal back-water is 
now considerably diminished since the sandbank on which YTir- 
niouth stands became solid land, and no longer an island. The 
lower parts of this great valley have undoubtedly been filled up 
at least six feet, within comparatively recent times. Breydon has 
been silted up four feet within the last half-century, but that is 
due to peculiar causes. 
No wonder that, when the adventurous Danes felt their Avay up 
these estuaries, they should have christened the villages on their 
banks with those terminations of “ by ” and “ wic,” which at once 
indicate their original naval character. I must protest, however, 
against the general idea that “the sea came up to Norwich.” It 
was simply that there was more water, and that perhaps backed 
up higher, for in digging for the sewerage works at Trowse, and 
elsewhere, though the ])cat passed through was live or six lls'l 
I 
