[ 57 ] 
pretenflons to any affinity or connexion of any kind 
with them, either in blood, language, or cuftoms ? 
How came they to difappear, and leave fo few traces 
of trade, plenty, or arts, and no pofterity, that we 
can learn, behind them ? This is what the curious 
will be folicitous to knowj and two caufes of this 
fad: occurr’d to me whilft I was at Sylley, which 
may perhaps fatisfy their inquiries : The manifeft in- 
croachments of the fea, and as manifeft a fubfidence 
of fome parts of the land. 
§ 2. The fea is the infatiable monfter, which de- 
vours thefe little iflands, gorges itfelf with the earth, 
fand, clay, and all the yielding parts, and leaves no- 
thing, where it can reach, but the lkeleton, the bared 
rock. The continual advances, which the fea makes 
upon the low lands, at prefent, are plain to all peo- 
ple of obfervation, and within thefe laft thirty years 
have been very conflderable. What we fee happen- 
ing every day may aflure us of what has happen’d in 
former times j and from the banks of fand and earth 
giving way to the fea, and the breaches becoming 
ftill more open, and irrecoverable, it appears, that re- 
peated tempefts have occafion’d a gradual diflolution 
of the folids for many ages, and as gradual progref- 
five afcendency of the fluids. 
Again ; the flats, which ftretch from one ifland to 
another, are plain evidences of a former union fub- 
fifting between many now diftindt iflands. The flats 
between Trefcaw, Brehar, and Sampfon, (mark’d 
D E in the map) are quite dry at a fpring-tide, and 
men eafily pafs dry-fhod from one ifland to another, 
over fand-banks, (where, upon the fhifting of the' 
fands, walls, and ruins are frequently difcover’d) upon 
H which 
I 
