w mouth through
which the sea poured. If he could only dam up that entrance, he
thought he could rescue the bed of the cove and add to his acres. He
bought an old ship and sank it by the entrance and proceeded to drain.
But a tiresome storm arose and drove the ship right across the cove,
and the sea poured in again. By no means discouraged, he dammed up the
entrance more effectually, got rid of the water, increased his farm by
many acres, and the old ship makes an admirable cow-shed.

[Illustration: Disused Mooring-Post on bank of the Rother, Rye]

The Isle of Wight in remote geological periods was part of the
mainland. The Scilly Isles were once joined with Cornwall, and were
not severed until the fourteenth century, when by a mighty storm and
flood, 140 churches and villages were destroyed and overwhelmed, and
190 square miles of land carried away. Much land has been lost in the
Wirral district of Cheshire. Great forests have been overwhelmed, as
the skulls and bones of deer and horse and fresh-water shell-fish have
been frequently discovered at low tide. Fifty years ago a distance of
half a mile separated Leasowes Castle from the sea; now its walls are
washed by the waves. The Pennystone, off the Lancashire coast by
Blackpool, tells of a submerged village and manor, about which cluster
romantic legends.

Such is the sad record of the sea's destruction, for which the
industrious reclamation of land, the compensations wrought by the
accumulation of shingle and sand dunes and the silting of estuaries
can scarcely compensate us. How does the sea work this? There are
certain rock-boring animals, such as the Pholas, which help to decay
the rocks. Each mollusc cuts a series of augur-holes from two to four
inches deep, and so assists in destroying the bulwarks of England.
Atmospheric action, the disintegration of soft rocks by frost and by
the attack of the sea below, all tend in the same direction. But the
foolish action of man in removing shingle, the natural protection of
our coasts, is also very mischievous. There is an instance of this in
the Hall Sands and Bee Sands, Devon. A company a few years ago
obtained authority to dredge both from the foreshore and sea-bed. The
Commissioners of Woods and Forests and the Board of Trade granted this
permission, the latter receiving a royalty of L50 and the former L150.
This occurred in 1896. Soon afterwards a heavy gale arose and caused
an immense amount of damage, the result e