The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-08-22

wave from the Atlantic, which divides on the Cornish coast, has much to an- swer for. One part passes around the north of Scotland into the German. ocean, and thence in southerly dia- rection, to be met by the other part sweeping up the English Channel. Backward and forward pass the detri- tus laden waters, grinding away at the cliffs of Albion and giving the sea each year frmer grip upon the land. In the course of centuries acres and acres have disappeared; populous town nave vanished beneath the waves, and only name and a memory remain where once a thriving multitude held sway.
 Yorkshire alone has record of no few CT than twelve drowned towns and villages. There was Ravenspur, for in- stance, which was constituted free borough by Edward l., at a cost of $500, and became a seaport of almost national importance. There it was that Edward Balliol embarked with a force 2,500 strong in order to swin the crown of Scotland. The town, bigger and more important than Hull, had five churches, a capacious harbor and a number of buildings bedtting its rank aad importance Where are they noW2 Travelling southward, one comes to Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, three coun- ties which in particular have suffered from the onslaughter of the waves. When Cromer was an inland village, Shipden was royal demesne, to-day Shipdetl has been drowned and Cromer is a seaside town, though how long 1t will remain so depends on it's protec- tive measures against the sea. It has al- ready spent &36,00O on sea defences. Or Lowestoft? During the twenty years | ending 1904 the sea denuded the beach of more than 100000 tons of shingles, representing on the north side of the town alone nearly S00,00O square yards of material. Not less than 357,000 has
 been spent on protective measures, and on the south side of the town the low
 water water mark has been driven back nearly seventy feet. But that much more remains to be done Is evid- ent from the fact that fourteen feet of cliff at Pakefeld, near lowestoet, re- gently disappeared, leaving the Cliff Hotel in such perilous position that it Is no longer habitable,
 Dunwich. perhaps, is the most mo-
 table example of this terrible devasta-
 tion. A village of hundred odd in- hahitants and the ruins of a large church on the edge of crumbling cliff are all that remain of the ancient capi- tai of East Anglia. which according to Stow had "a Kings court and Bishops palace, and Mayors mansion, and fifty two churches, and the same number of windmills, together with spacious and well frequented harbor, in which were 1 as many top ships as churches No fewer, than 400 houses were swept away in single year in the reign of Edward IT.; between 1885 and 1900 four churches | disappeared; by 1877 the sea had mer- rily stopped over the marketplace; and by 1729 St. Peters Church and it's graveyard were under water. In Kent
 the land has the upper hand, on the
 the whole, though 1t is instructive to not that Receiver Church, in Herme Bay, was mile from the sea in the the reign of Henry VIII Only a sea wall had saved from destruction the spires, which are maintained by Trim
 ity House to serve as landmark to sailors.
 The Isle of Wight is in pitable con-
 dition. So recently as November last
 thirty-six feet of the shore between Freshwater Bay and the Tar River
 was claimed by the sea, and it is quite
 possible that within the next few
 years the Needles district will be cut
 off from the main part by the sea.
 What do these losses mean? They
 mean that every year we lose q tract
 of land the size of Gibraltar, while on
 the east coast alone territory as large
 as Heligoland disappears. It has been
 calculated that in modern times alone
 Yorkshire has lost land equal to the
 area of Guernsey and Kent a piece as
 large as Bermuda. Mall Gazette