iz8 THE HISTORY Book I. hy the preffure of the interior ocean, as the Romans denomi- nated St. George's Channel '% and by the gradual fettlement of the fands at the mouth of the river. Had the difference been thus occafioned, the Merfey upon one fide and the Lune upon the other muft have partaken of the fame fate, and have been blocked up with the fame fands. It muft have been pro- duced by a caufe as partial as the effefts appear to be, and cori- , fined, like them, to the ftream of the Ribble. And tradition, .the faithful prcferver of many a fa£t which hiftory has over- looked or forgotten, fpcaks confidently of fuch a caufe, afcribing • the final ruin of Ribchefter to the overwhelming violence of an earthquake. Such a caufe without doubt muft have origin- ally changed the nature of this once the moil remarkable seftu- ary within the county, and have thrown up that large and broad barrier of fand which crofles the opening of it, almoft choaks up the inlet of the tide into it, and contra&s the original breadth of the navigable channel from its majeftic extent of eight, or nine miles to the narrow fpan of an hundred yards. Such was the aeftuary of the Ribble when it was employed as an harbour by the Romans. And from the great fingularity of the name which the Romans conferred upon it, THE HAR- BOUR OF LANCASHIRE, it appears to have been the only river in the county which was employed as an harbour by them. Paffing through the center of the Siftuntian country, .and opening with the largeft mouth into the fea, the Romans naturally preferred it to the Merfey or the Lune, and made it a the one port for the county of Lancafter. And here they fhipped off the commodities of Lancafhire, its cattle and, its hides, its neat baikets and its large hunting-dogs, as the Romans of Italy were particularly fond of both the latter, and imported the com- modities of Gaul and the drefles of Italy ' The ftation which was called by the fame appellation of the Siftuntian Harbour was certainly ere&ed upon the margin of it, and confequently within the mouth of the prefent Ribble. And we lhall not wander long in the fearch of its fite. It muft Jiave been at the termination of the above-mentioned road, as the
