“Hæc loca, vi quondam et vasta convulsa ruina, Tantum ævi longinqua valet mutare vetustas! Dissiluisse ferunt, quum protenus utraque tellus Una foret; venit medio vi pontus et undis Hesperium Siculo latus abscidit, arvaque et urbes Litore deductas angusto interluit æsta.” Æneid, iii., 414-19. But whatever may be thought of this opinion thus rendered immortal by the genius of the poet, we shall not stop to discuss its merits. For in the present stage of our argument, it is our object to deal, not with vague and uncertain traditions, nor even with philosophical speculations, but rather with the facts which are actually going on in nature, and which any one of our readers may examine for himself. With this object in view, we shall take a few examples from the Eastern and Southern coasts of Great Britain, which have been carefully explored by scientific men for the purpose of observing and recording the amount of destruction accomplished by the waves within recent times. [Illustration: Fig. 1.--Granitic rocks to the south of Hillswick Ness, Shetland. From Lyell’s Principles of Geology.] The Shetland Islands, exposed to the whole fury of the Atlantic, present many phenomena not unlike those of Kilkee and Loop Head, but upon a far grander scale. Whole islands have been swept away by the resistless power of the waters, and of others nothing remains but massive pillars of hard rock, which have been well described as rising up “like the ruins of Palmyra in the desert of the ocean.” Passing to the mainland, it is recorded that in the year 1795 a village in Kincardineshire was carried away in a single night, and the sea advanced a hundred and fifty yards inland, where it has ever since maintained its ground. In England, almost the whole coast of Yorkshire is undergoing constant dilapidation. On the south side of Flamborough Head the cliffs are receding at an average rate of two yards and a quarter in the year, for a distance of thirty-six miles along the coast. This would amount to a mile since the Norman Conquest, and to more than two miles since the occupation of York by the Romans. It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that many spots marked in the old maps of the country as the sites of towns or villages, are now sandbanks in the sea. Even places of historic name have not been spared. The town of Ravenspur, from which, in 1332, Edward Baliol sailed for the invasion of Scotland, and at which Henry the Fourth landed in 1399, to claim the throne of England, has long since been swallowed up by the devouring element.