and reclaiming estuaries from the ravages of the sea. By copying after nature we are taught sound principles of art on purely physical laws. This embankment is wholly constructed of shingle, from 100 to 300 yards in breadth, and about 10 or 15 feet above the level of ordinary spring tides. Drifted sand has contributed to heighten the embankment along its whole line; and in some parts it has been blown up into ridges as much as 40 feet in height, and matted over with marine plants, which augment its efficiency and strength. Immediately within this marine embankment, the land lies on a low level, is free from stones, and affords at the same time a natural and protected drain to the more inland parts of the plain. Previous to its termination at Grun Point, for four miles in length, within which the chief portion of the plain lies, a small brook runs immediately along the ridge of shingle, having a short sea-dike across at Skinburness that protects one of the most fruitful tracts of land in the county of Cumberland. In the Low Holm as much as 9000 acres of land has been formed within this marine dyke, perfectly secure and free from inundations. From Bankend to Grun Point there is not the slightest appearance of a breach being even threatened at any period of time. But it is on record that a remarkably high tide swept the village of Skinburness from off the crest of the marine dyke on which it stands.

A feature in the quality of the soil of Low Holm is, that the tide-wave has drifted sand and finely divided clay around the end of the travelling beach just described. This operation has in fact assorted the materials of which the soil is composed. Sand has been the first deposited and driven the furthest from the marine dike. Finely divided clay being more buoyant and adhesive has been thrown uppermost, and in the greatest abundance immediately within the line of the dike. Physical laws have, therefore, provided a highly fruitful soil by a favourable (almost intelligent) assortment of the materials of which the plain is composed. Trivial as this may seem in passing, the simplicity of nature's handy works is evinced, a wise and providential economy has been exercised, and we are left the especial task of drawing our knowledge from facts. It is proved that the most judicious mode of reclaiming land from the sea, is not only putting nature into a true form that she may work for herself, but according to her best and most effective laws. By such means the land reclaimed may be rendered fruitful in quality, in place of almost barren silicious soils gained at a heavy expense; opposed to cheap and effective plans, which acquire the best land by taking a copy from nature.

The rivers Wampool and Waver, two small inland streams, have checked the further progress of the marine dike at Grun Point, and disturbed the navigation of the Solway Frith exceedingly. But

for this incident, the dike of shingle would have assuredly gone on two miles further, rested its termini on high and strong ground, and reclaimed an additional 4500 acres of the best land from the sea in Kirkbride Loch. This land being mostly dry at low water, and not more than one half its area covered by neap tides, we shall consider its means of reclamation by and by.

Viewing the estuary of the Solway Frith as a whole, it is more than one-half choked up by drifted sands, brought forwards by inland drains on one hand, and returned again to a tidal terminus on the other. From Maryport to Sandsfield, the beginning and the end of the Solway, there is an almost continuous tendency to the deposition of silt upon the coast of Cumberland. With the exception of Bowness indeed, which stands out boldly northwards and presses upon the red sandstone of the Scottish coast, by the force of the figure of the estuary, for diluvial beds press here upon rocks, the entire line is favourable to the gathering of depositions, and constitute the main cause of the travelling beach already described. The line of the shore from Bankend to Sandsfield, corresponding to the zone of limestone and coal measures southwards, is in truth a regular curve, with a breadth of two miles intervening, through which the Wampool and the Waver flow from the uplands. Descending step by step from carboniferous limestone, high above the level of the sea,

transversely across coal measures and diluvial beds, until they reach the Solway, and effect a breach in the natural deposition of its alluvian, to the extent of 4500 acres within Grun Point, not to say how much they check depositions in accumulating seawards. Estimating the Solway Frith from Maryport, as much as 100,000 acres of sand banks are either dry at low water, or nearly so. Such a waste of British territory, and so much detriment to navigation on the narrowest point of England, deserve intense public notice, since a highly profitable remedy is available.

What has been previously said throws much light upon the general features of the tide-wave in the North Sea. Like those of the north and south Irish Channels, it springs from the deep heavings and mighty pulsations of the Atlantic Ocean. Borne along the mountain chain of Norway, from the very character of the position from whence it starts, and pent up by land and counter currents southwards and westwards, we need observe only that it is beset with sand banks, which endanger navigation, that its bays are choked up by drifting sands; that its rivers are barred; and that its most favourable backwater navigations are merely tidal. How unlike Valentia, Bear Harbour, Cork, Milford Haven, Brest, Cherbourg, Plymouth, and Portsinouth, all lying in one continuous and short line! Whatever drift is carried into the North Sea can never return; whilst a strong tidal current

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runs along and never from its shores on north and south bearings. In reference to this incident, on the British shore, all the rivers run from west to east. Consequently, the tide-wave uniformly crosses and bars every inland stream, drifts up every bay, and imparts a deadly hindrance to navigation.

England, however, enjoys an ample compensation for these defects, in the extent of land she has thereby acquired, and the amazing sum of drifted forests which have been stranded and deposited in the tertiary formation. Along the eastern line of Great Britain, we detect in the efflux of every river, as shewn by any tolerably good chart, the plainest evidences of a strong current flowing along shore from north to south, as the openings of almost every river is driven southwards by tidal action. The prevailing straight lines, indeed, along this coast, as compared to the western shores of Scotland and Ireland, and the general shallowness of water in shore, from the Frith of Forth to Dover, prove the direction and vastness of the drift, scoured from Polar deeps, and deposited on points of land, where it remained eternally at rest. As concerns navigation, therefore, bad is continually becoming worse. Amendment by any operations in nature is hopeless. Art is nevertheless profitably available.

At Banff we meet with an instance of inland backwater, ever contending with the sea in a strug