remained at anchor in the open sea, implying that no creek or haven was available for their security; and in this respect the spot under consideration suits with the narrative.
   The year following the events which, thus far, we have been examining, Caesar embarked much earlier in the season, on his second expedition, with a force of five legions, and on reaching the coast of Britain, about midday, found no enemy in sight; he therefore landed without opposition, and having selected a spot for his camp, inarched in search of the British army, leaving his ships at anchor.¹ On this occasion he steered from Gaul to the part of the island which he had ascertained in the preceding year to be best fitted for a landing; he does not say distinctly that he reached, or intended to reach, the very spot where he arrived in his first expedition, but his words may well be interpreted to signify that he did so, and as Dion Cassius asserts plainly that the second landing was at the. same place as the first, there is no good reason to doubt that such was the fact. Caesar again speaks of the open shore, and describes it to have been soft, a characteristic sufficiently accordant with the ground between St. Leonard's and Bulverhithe.² In 
   ¹ "AEstus commutationem secutus remia contendit, ut earn partem insulae caperet, qua optimum esse egressum superiore aestate cognoverat. . . . Accessum est ad Brianniam omnibus navibus meridiano fere tempore; neque in eo loco hostis est visus."—De Bell. Gall., lib. v. c. 7.
   ² " Eo minus veritus navibus, quod in littore molli atque aperto deligatas ad anehoram relinquebat."—Ibid., lib. v. c. 8. It may reasonably be inferred from the word mollis, that Caesar did not find the deposit of beach which now exists on this part of the coast, and both an examination of the shore and history tend alike to show that it is a very recent accumulation; that which lies on the shore, as well as that which covers the surface of the ground for a short distance inland, appears to have been thrown up in very modern tunes. The soil of the valleys is clay, lying over sea-sand, in, or immediately under which many trees are found, some of considerable size, at depths varying from a few feet to fourteen feet below the surface. I have not been able to learn that any traces of early occupation have been met with in these valleys. In Csesar's time the soft shore may here have extended further towards the sea than it does at present.