Not only were the foundations of Eccles church exposed on the foreshore, but an old road across the marshes also appeared on the seaward side of the dunes, giving a still more exact idea of the former great influence of the chain of dunes in damping the oscillations of the tidal wave. The tide outside now rises and falls some 12 or 15 feet; on the marsh within its influence is only felt under exceptional circumstances. A road across the marsh at a level four or five feet below high-water, as this one stood, would still be passable, except during unusual floods. Eccles Church is an excellent example of the way in which an ancient land-surface may now be found below the level of high-water, and yet no subsidence of the land has taken place. But this coast can give even more curious examples. It does not need a sand-dune to deaden the rise and fall of the tides; even a submerged bank will have much the same effect. Extensive submerged sand-banks extend parallel with the coast, protecting the anchorage known as Yarmouth Roads. These banks rise so nearly to the surface of the sea that not only do they protect the town and anchorage against the waves, they deaden the tidal oscillation to such an extent that its range is much greater outside the bank than within. If these submerged outer banks were to be swept away by some change in the set of the currents, large areas now cultivated and inhabited would be flooded by salt water at every spring tide, and the turf of the meadows would be covered by a layer of marine silt, such as we see alternating with the submerged forests in the docks of the Thames. Such alternations, if thin, do not necessarily prove a change in the level of the sea; they may only point to the alternate accumulation and removal of sand-banks in a distant part of the estuary. The Norfolk coast trends westward soon after leaving Cromer, and where the cliff seems to pass inland at Weybourn we enter an ancient valley, one side of which has been entirely cut away by the sea, except for a few relics of the further bank, now included in the shingle beach which runs out to sea nearly parallel with the coast and protects Blakeney Harbour. Here again we find that in the bottom of the valley there must be a submerged forest, for slabs of peat are often thrown up at Weybourn, and by the use of a grapnel the peat was found in place off Weybourn at a depth of several fathoms.