arcely able to escape.[448] Florus, alluding to the
same tradition, says, "Cimbri, Teutoni, atque Tigurini, ab extremis
Galliae profugi, cum terras eorum inundasset Oceanus, novas sedes toto
orbe quaerebant."[449] This event, commonly called the "Cimbrian Deluge,"
is supposed to have happened about three centuries before the Christian
era; but it is not improbable that the principal catastrophe was
preceded and followed by many devastations like those experienced in
modern times on the islands and shores of Jutland, and such calamities
may well be conceived to have forced on the migration of some maritime
tribes.

_Inroads of the sea on the eastern shores of North America._--After so
many authentic details respecting the destruction of the coast in parts
of Europe best known, it will be unnecessary to multiply examples of
analogous changes in more distant regions of the world. It must not,
however, be imagined that our own seas form any exception to the general
rule. Thus, for example, if we pass over to the eastern coast of North
America, where the tides rise, in the Bay of Fundy, to a great
elevation, we find many facts attesting the incessant demolition of
land. Cliffs, often several hundred feet high, composed of sandstone,
red marl, and other rocks, which border that bay and its numerous
estuaries, are perpetually undermined. The ruins of these cliffs are
gradually carried, in the form of mud, sand, and large boulders, into
the Atlantic by powerful currents, aided at certain seasons by drift
ice, which forms along the coast, and freezes round large stones.

At Cape May, on the north side of Delaware Bay, in the United States,
the encroachment of the sea was shown by observations made consecutively
for sixteen years, from 1804 to 1820, to average about nine feet a
year;[450] and at Sullivan's Island, which lies on the north side of the
entrance of the harbor of Charleston, in South Carolina, the sea carried
away a quarter of a mile of land in three years, ending in 1786.[451]

_Tidal wave called "the Bore."_--Before concluding my remarks on the
action of the tides, I must not omit to mention the wave called "the
Bore," which is sometimes produced in a river where a large body of
water is made to rise suddenly, in consequence of the contraction of the
channel. This wave terminates abruptly on the inland side; because the
quantity of water contained in it is so great, and its motion so rapid,
that time is not allowe