THE ENCROACHING SEA ON THE EAST COAST. 299
At Walton-on-the-Naze, the steep Naze, with its command-
ing landmark, would long ago have been an island, but for the
constant exertions of the Waltonians, who have spent large sums
of money in keeping up strong defences and stone walls. So far
they have successfully averted this dreaded catastrophe.2
Thence south to Clacton, the cliffs, though lofty, are gradu-
ally being undermined; great landslips continually occur, and
the marshes by Great Holland were completely inundated in
the tide of November last. In Norden's Map of Essex (1594)
this part is marked as an open estuary.3
Below Clacton the sea at the same time made a clean breach
over the St. Osyth marshes, and Brightlingsea itself actually
became an island, an occurrence worth recording, as it is one
only once previously known to the inhabitants, and that over
20 years ago.
All up along the course of the Blackwater (15 miles) to
Maldon, the same tale is told, and great tracts of land in the
Dengie Hundred, presumably those enclosed by the Rev. Bate
Dudley, shared a similar submersion.
Further south again, by Burnham-on-Crouch, the islands
forming the Essex Archipelago were inundated, and some of the
inhabitants were imprisoned by the waters in the upper stories
of their farms.
The same account holds good all round by Southend and up
the Thames, where even the better built Dutch walls of Canvey
Island failed to keep the waters out, and hundreds of acres of
land bordering our great river, all along its course to London
Bridge, were devastated by the salt waters. Here, however,
there are capable authorities to deal with such contingencies,
and labour available to strengthen still further the dykes, which
must every year be heightened and repaired. But in other parts
of the county not so fortunately situated, this invasion of the
sea is becoming a very serious matter, and though the naturalist
looks with a certain amount of interest on the unequal contest
which is continually being waged between sea and land, and
notes with pleasure the increased bird life that attends the
victories of the former, he would be very callous indeed if he did
not also feel much sympathy for the unfortunate owners of the
marshes on the Essex coast.
2 A short account of the subsidence of a considerable extent of the Cliff at Walton-on-
Naze was given in the present volume of the Essex Naturalist {ante p. 336).—Ed.
3 Cf. the reproduction of Norden's Map given in the Essex Naturalist, Vol. II.
(February, r88;).