“There is a force of subsidence (particularly in soft ground) which being a natural consequence of gravity, slowly, though imperceptibly operating, has its action sometimes quickened and rendered sudden by extraneous causes; for instance, by earthquakes. The slow effects of this force of subsidence have been accurately remarked in many places: examples also of its sudden action are recorded in almost every history of great earthquakes.—In England, Borlase has given in the Philosophical Transactions a curious observation of a subsidence of at least sixteen feet in the ground between Sampson and Trecaw islands in Scilly. The soft and low grounds between the towns of Thorne and Gowle in Yorkshire, a space of many miles, has so much subsided in latter times, that some old men of Thorne affirmed, “that whereas they could before see little of the Steeples (of Gowle) they now see the church yard wall.” The instances of similar subsidence which might be mentioned, are innumerable. “The force of subsidence, suddenly acting by means of some earthquake, seems to me the most probable cause to which the usual submarine situation of the forest we are speaking of may be ascribed. It affords a simple easy explanation of the matter; its probability is supported by numberless instances of similar events; and it is not liable to the strong objections which exist against the hypothesis of the ultimate depression and elevation of the level of the ocean; an opinion which, to be credible, requires the support of a great number of proofs less equivocal than those which have hitherto been urged in its favour, even by the genius of Lavoisier. “The stratum of soil, sixteen feet thick, placed above the decayed trees, seems to remove the epoch of their sinking and destruction far beyond the reach of any historical knowledge. In Cæsar’s time the level of the north sea appears to have been the same as in our days. He mentions the separation of the Wahal branch of the Rhine, and its junction with the Meuse; noticing the then existing distance from that junction to the sea, which agrees according to D’Anville’s inquiries, with the actual distance. Some of the Roman roads, constructed according to the order of Augustus, under Agrippa’s administration, leading to the maritime towns of Belgium, still exist, and reach the present shore. The description which Roman authors have given of the coast, ports, and mouths of rivers, on both sides of the North sea, agree in general with their present state; except in places ravaged by the inroads of this sea, more apt from its force to destroy the surrounding countries than to increase them.