The comparison of old maps of counties bordering on the sea with modern charts, affords a striking and clear idea of the rate and extent of this work of destruction. No better illustration can be cited of the ravages of the ocean than that exhibited in maps of the Yorkshire coast-lines, and particularly in the district lying between Flamborough Head and the mouth of the Humber. Whilst the district between the Wash in Lincolnshire and the estuary of the Thames shews an equally great amount of destructive change. Three feet per annum is said to be no uncommon rate for soft strata in these localities to be carried away; and the geologist may point to the famous Goodwin Sands--notorious alike in ancient and modern history--as another example of the results of sea-action, and of the wear and tear exercised by the mighty deep. The contemplation of such actions fits us in a singularly apt manner for the realisation of the full force and meaning of the Laureate's words: There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O Earth, what changes hast thou seen! It is highly important, however, to note that the sea receives aid of no ordinary kind in its acts of spoliation by the operation of certain forces affecting the land itself. Land frequently disappears from sight beneath the surface of the sea by a process of subsidence or sinking. We must therefore clearly distinguish between the land which the sea literally takes by its own act, and that which becomes its property through this curious subsidence and sinking of the earth's crust. No doubt the result is practically the same in each case; the sea being in either instance the gainer, and the land the loser. But the sinking of land being a phenomenon less familiar to the ordinary reader, we venture to note a few of its more prominent aspects.