394 ROMNEY MARSH.

This tract lies, at present, almost wholly unproductive; a principal part of it, en- tirely so; loose, naked, clean-washed sea gravel, of asharp flinty nature. The west end, towards the productive Marsh lands, has.a slight covering of sward; on which I saw sheep depasturing: this part having been longer formed, ahd freed from the in- roads of the sea.

Nature’s process, in. rendering‘this dis- couraging subject, this deep bed of naked flints, useful to the vegetable and animal parts of creation, is this..‘The first conspi- cuous plant, of the herbaceous kind, is the tall oat grass(avena elatior) whose bulbous roots, in a state of decay, probably afford nourishment to a species of agrostis; from what I could judge of it,in the month of Sep-

tember, the agrostis canina, or brown bent.

This spreads a sort of network over the gra~ vel; and, onthis slight foundation, small ant- hills are raised!—doubtless, with particles of soil, fetched up from the base of the bed of gravel, or with the few that may be lodged

among it.»These being trodden down, in

their’ infant state, and from time to time, by the feet of animals, or scattered, by other