IN tracing the rise and progress of the city, it is necessary to inquire respecting the physical condition of the district around it at an early period. Before the dawn of authentic history, it is in vain to expect full information on this point; but the natural changes that have taken place may be traced with tolerable clearness. Geologists inform us that the whole area of Norfolk, including Norwich, was in remote ages under the sea; that by the slow accumulation of alluvial matter islands were formed in this estuary; and that the waters were divided into several channels. We may speculate as to the causes of these changes of the level of land and water, but we cannot doubt the fact of such changes having taken place. When or why the great body of waters retired to its great reservoir in the bed of the ocean is unknown; but whatever the causes, it is certain that between the first and the eleventh century the waters did gradually recede till the river assumed a narrower appearance. The higher part of the city from Ber Street up to Lakenham was probably, 2000 years ago, like an island surrounded by water flowing up the valley of the Taas on that side, and over the valley of the Wensum on the other side. The existence of Norwich as a city during the Roman period from B.C. 50 till A.D. 400 or 500 is very doubtful. Camden says that its name occurs nowhere till the Danish wars. If it did exist, it was only a fishing station, for then a broad arm of the sea flowed up the valley of the Yare, and covered a great part of the north side of the present city. Indeed, for centuries after the Christian era this arm of the sea may have flowed over the greater part of the ground on which the north side of the city now stands. In the course of time, however, the arm of the sea gradually silted up and left only the present narrow river Wensum flowing into the Yare. Tradition has handed down this couplet: “Caister was a city when Norwich was none, And Norwich was built of Caister stone.” There is, however, no evidence that Caister was ever more than a village on the banks of the Taas, where the Romans built a camp to overawe the neighbourhood; while all the old Roman roads have always radiated from Norwich, proving that it was a place of importance in the Roman period. The _Iceni_ called it _Caer Gwent_, altered by the Romans into _Venta_, so that it was the _Venta Icenorum_ of the Romans, who probably threw up the mound on which a castle was afterwards built, in the Anglo-Saxon period.