At Hithe, in the county of Kent, the harbour has filled up in defiance of every expence and precaution that was made to prevent it. A surprising number of sea-shells, &c. are met with for several miles round, which were formerly heaped together, and which are now covered by earth, and are beautiful meadows. On the other side the sea has gained in several places, as for instance, the Goodwin Sands, which was an estate belonging to an Earl of that name, but at present is no more than sand covered by the waters of the sea: thus the sea in many places gains on the land and loses in others, according to the different situation of the coasts, and other circumstances.[AU]
[AU] See Abridg. Philosophical Trans. vol. IV. p. 234.
On Mount Stella, in Portugal, is a lake in which the wrecks of ships have been found, notwithstanding this mountain is more than 12 leagues from the sea.[AV] Sabinius, in his Commentaries on Ovid's Metamorphoses, says, that in the year 1460 a ship, with its anchors, was found in a mine of the Alps.
[AV] See Gordon's Geography, page 149.
It is not in Europe alone we meet with these vicissitudes of land into sea and sea into land; other parts of the world might furnish more remarkable, and in a greater number, if investigated with precision.
Calecut was formerly a famous city and the capital of a kingdom of that name; at present it is only a trifling town, meanly built, and but thinly inhabited: the sea, which for a century has gained greatly on this coast, has overflowed the greatest part of the old city, with a beautiful fortress of stone which was therein. Vessels at present moor on their ruins, and the port is filled with a great number of shoals, and on which ships are frequently wrecked.[AW]
[AW] See Letters Edifiantes Recueil 11. page 187.
The province of Jucatan, a peninsula in the gulph of Mexico, was formerly a part of the sea. This neck of ground extends 100 leagues in length, and is not more than 25 leagues at its greatest breadth. The air is perfectly hot and moist. Although there are neither rivulets nor rivers throughout so long a space, the water is every where so nigh the surface as to furnish plenty; and, by opening the earth, so great a number of shells are found as to leave no doubt that this great extent may be regarded as a place which formerly was part of the sea.
The inhabitants of Malabar pretend that formerly the Maldivian islands were attached to the Indian continent, and that the violence of the sea has divided them from it. The number of these islands is so great, and some of the channels, which separate them, are so narrow, that the boltsprits of vessels which pass them tear off the leaves of the trees on each side, and in some places an active man, by holding by the branch of a tree, may leap into another island.[AX]
[AX] See the Dutch Travels to the East-Indies, page 274.