In every age the poet has been inspired to sing of force combats between man and man, whilst it has ever been the duty of the historian to narrate the rise, the progress, and the issue of those numerous contests carried on by nation against nation, ever since the world began. But it is, a still grander subject that I would bring to-day before your notice, namely, a duel between two elements; and although I have neither the sweet strains of the poet, nor the exciting events of the historian to aid me, yet as I am possessed of some facts, certainly not generally known, resulting from personal observations of the substructure of an adjoining county, I am in hopes that a short digest of these maybe acceptable. A great contest between the sea and the land, leading to frequent changes in their respective boundaries, had certainly been raging upon the Lincolnshire coast for centuries before the arrival of the Romans in Britain, and that period when written records began to be kept. Doubtless the ocean has there, from time to time, swept far beyond its natural limits with an irresistible tide, reaching points in Lincolnshire now removed nearly twenty miles from it;* and yet, little by little, it has, through its very fury, aided to form a future barrier against itself. This it has done by the accumulation of the silt left upon its retreat, in concert with the earthy deposits caused by the continual flow of the inland ...