LONDON SINKING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 85, 12 April 1937, Page 10

LONDON SINKING

FLOOD DANGER GROWS

London is sinking into the. sea,, so the Royal. Geographical Society tells us, and this year she has; completed another inch in.that.seaward journey, says the "New York Times." London has sunk 80 feet in all, but it has taken 5000 years to do it. It has not sunk at a.regular rate either, but by fits and starts, and the Royal Geographical Society says that the "next fifty years are likely to show startling changes.". "There are many ways In wmcn geologists, can ascertain what has happened in the past and forecast with reasonable accuracy what is likely to happen in the future. There is a historical check on many things. For instance, in the reign of Henry VIII Cardinal Wolsey, built the Bridewell Palace on the embankment at Blackfriars. He would not be likely to build a palace where the ground floor would be flooded at every high tide Yet that is where the palace was. When they were laying the foundation's for Unilever House, which stands on the site of the old Bridewell Palace, the palace wharf was found to be seven feet below the, ordinary high tides of tOG a eologists say that London has not sunk the usual amount every decade. There was a period of about 200 years when the subsiding ceased and then there occurred such a quick sinking that wide areas were flooded. _ A tide only fifteen feet above the spring level would submerge most of the city today. Sea waves would reach to Richmond . and large areas of Kent and; Essex would be permanently submerged. London's danger comes from the sea up the river, rather than from the sources'down, as is,the case with American floods.