30 On the Phoenician Tin Trade in Cornwall, by R. Edmonds. 
protection for ships." But if what is now, and has been imme- 
morially, called the " causeway " were intended by the bishop, 
and if he thought it to have been a work begun by men, be must 
have been greatly mistaken, for there is no vestige of such a 
beginning. Indeed, the labours of man have been indirectly 
lowering, instead of heightening the natural causeway. 
In the time of Leland, about three hundred and thirty years 
since, it was uncovered six,'^'' but now only four hours out of tbe 
twelve, on an average. Therefore, it is now evidently lower than 
it used to be. This is owing to the sand adjoining it on the west 
having been abstracted or lowered by the causes above mentioned. 
An equally obvious effect has resulted from this lowering of the 
adjoining sand. The causeway, within the last hundred years, 
was almost in a straight line between tbe present entrance into 
the Mount and the present entrance by the slip into Marazion. 
Now, it has assumed a very considerable bend towards the east, 
curving near the centre to a distance of many yards from its 
former course. This curve has been produced by the more power- 
ful tides and waves resulting from the lowering of the sand and 
the consequent deepening of the water on the west, whereby the 
sea is annually driving the central part of the causeway further 
towards the east. Notwithstanding this curvature, however, the 
causeway is still the place where the " two seas " or currents meet 
at every tide — the one from the west and the other from the east, 
to insulate the .Mount ; and whenever the waves are large, the 
causeway is so altered and unfit for the passage of carts, by reason 
of the large rounded blocks of stone borne along by the waves and 
deposited thereon when they meet, that men are employed to re- 
move these obstacles before the waggons can cross. This shoal or 
causeway w'as no more begun by man than was the shoal " where 
two seas met," and where St. Paul was wi'ecked (Acts xxvii., 41). 
Bishop Lacy s desire probably was that the eastern arm of the 
* Itinerary, vii., p. 12". 
