340 
BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
legend : High Ledge somewhat green at its top. This green can, of 
course, only refer to vegetation, since the ledge is red. That ledge 
to-day bears not a trace of any vegetation, apparently because the sea 
now washes high enough to prevent it, though otherwise the situation 
is a favorable one for the lodgment of some plants. The evidence of 
ecology shows that vegetation tends, unless prevented by unfavorable 
outside influences, to increase, not to diminish, in such places. 
Gesner states in one of his papers that the gateway of old Fort 
Monckton, once of course well-above sea level, was in his time washed 
by the sea. He must refer here to the approach of the sea against 
the Fort through the washing away of the coast rather than to an 
actual dipping of the ground level of the Fort beneath the sea level. 
The exact extent of the washing away of the coast at Fort Monckton 
since it was built is happily known. Two maps recently published* 
show the outline of the coast near the Fort when it was built, about 
1751 (from a very careful survey made by the eminent French 
Engineer Franquet), and the outline in the year 1897. Comparison 
of the two shows that about thirty-five yards of the upland have been 
washed away on the north-east corner, and over double that amount 
on the south-east side. This washing away of the upland can only be 
explained by a marked sinking of the coast, though the amount of the 
sinking is not thereby determined. 
Op. cit. 289, 290. 
