Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/511

] land also have been destroyed on the coasts of Lancashire and Cheshire, and on those of Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk. In other places great additions have been made to the land by the accumulation of sand, shingle, and mud. The island of Thanet is now joined to Britain by fertile meadows; and Romney Marsh, and the large tracts of shingle at Dungeness and Rye, have been formed for the most part since the Roman Conquest. Great accumulations of alluvium have been formed in the lower parts of our larger rivers, and large areas in Lincolnshire and in Essex have been reclaimed from the waves by the hand of man. The creation of new and the destruction of old land may be taken to neutralise one another, so that Britain at the beginning of the Historic period was probably about as large as it is now. It is very unlikely that an island then occupied the site of the Goodwin Sands, as is asserted by tradition, for it is incredible that it could have escaped the notice of Ptolemy, who has given such a minute description of the coasts and islands.

The rainfall at the beginning of the Historic period in Britain must have been greater than it is now, because of the large extent of forest and morass, and the fogs and mists more often intercepted the light of the sun. In other respects the climate was more temperate than on the Continent, and with its extremes far less marked. It was warm enough in the south for the vine, but too cold for the olive.

The surface of the country was densely covered with trees. In the south the Anderidan forest extended over the greater part of Kent and Sussex, and into Wiltshire