The Fact Is
Indeed True, For There Is A Sort Of Clay In The Cliff, Between The
Town And The Beacon Hill Adjoining, Which, When It Falls Down Into
The Sea, Where It Is Beaten With The Waves And The Weather, Turns
Gradually Into Stone.
But the chief reason assigned is from the
water of a certain spring or well, which, rising in the
Said cliff,
runs down into the sea among those pieces of clay, and petrifies
them as it runs; and the force of the sea often stirring, and
perhaps turning, the lumps of clay, when storms of wind may give
force enough to the water, causes them to harden everywhere alike;
otherwise those which were not quite sunk in the water of the
spring would be petrified but in part. These stones are gathered
up to pave the streets and build the houses, and are indeed very
hard. It is also remarkable that some of them taken up before they
are thoroughly petrified will, upon breaking them, appear to be
hard as a stone without and soft as clay in the middle; whereas
others that have lain a due time shall be thorough stone to the
centre, and as exceeding hard within as without. The same spring
is said to turn wood into iron. But this I take to be no more or
less than the quality, which, as I mentioned of the shore at the
Naze, is found to be in much of the stone all along this shore,
viz., of the copperas kind; and it is certain that the copperas
stone (so called) is found in all that cliff, and even where the
water of this spring has run; and I presume that those who call the
hardened pieces of wood, which they take out of this well by the
name of iron, never tried the quality of it with the fire or
hammer; if they had, perhaps they would have given some other
account of it.
On the promontory of land which they call Beacon Hill and which
lies beyond or behind the town towards the sea, there is a
lighthouse to give the ships directions in their sailing by as well
as their coming into the harbour in the night. I shall take notice
of these again all together when I come to speak of the Society of
Trinity House, as they are called, by whom they are all directed
upon this coast.
This town was erected into a marquisate in honour of the truly
glorious family of Schomberg, the eldest son of Duke Schomberg, who
landed with King William, being styled Marquis of Harwich; but that
family (in England, at least) being extinct the title dies also.
Harwich is a town of hurry and business, not much of gaiety and
pleasure; yet the inhabitants seem warm in their nests, and some of
them are very wealthy. There are not many (if any) gentlemen or
families of note either in the town or very near it.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 26 of 74
Words from 13357 to 13859
of 39569
