GOODWIN SANDS, famous banks of shifting sands stretching about 10 m. in a direc tion n.e. and s.w., off the e. coast of Kent, at an average distance of 54 m. from the shore. The sands are divided into two portions by a narrow channel, and at low water, many parts are uncovered. When the tide recedes, the sand becomes firm and safe; but after the ebb, the water permeates through the mass, rendering the whole pulpy and treacherous, in which condition it shifts to such a degree as to render charts uncertain from year to year. The northern portion is of triangular form-34 m. long, and 24 in its greatest width; on the northernmost extremity, known as North Saud Head, a light vessel marks the entrance on thus perilous shoal. This light is distant about 7 in. from Ramsgate. In the center, on the western side, jutting out towards the shore, is the Blunt Head, a peculiarly dangerous portion, also marked by a light-ship. The southern portion is 10 m. in length, 2-4 in width at its northern end, and sloping towards the to a point called South Sand,Head, which, being marked by a light-vessel, completes the triangle of dangerous proximity recorded for the benefit of mariners.
From the sunken nature of these sands, they have always been replete with danger to vessels passing through the strait of Dover, and resorting either to the Thames or to the North sea. On the other hand, they serve as a breakwater to form a secure anchor age in the downs (q.v.), when easterly or south-easterly winds are blowing. The downs, though safe under these circumstances, become dangerous when the wind blows strongly off-shore, at which time ships are apt to drag their anchors, and to strand upon the per fidious breakers of the Goodwin, in the shifting sands of which their wrecks are soon entirely swallowed up. Many celebrated and terribly fatal wrecks have taken place lucre, among which we have only space to enumerate the three line-of-battle-ships, Stir ling Castle, Mary, and Northumberland, each of 70 guns, which, with other ten men-of war, were totally lost during the fearful gale of Nov. 26, 1703, a gale so tremendous that vessels were actually destroyed by it. while riding in the Med'.ay. On Dec. 21, 1805, here foundered time Aurora, a transport, when 300 perished; on Dee. 17, 1814, the British queen, an Ostend packet, was lost with all hands; and on Jan. 5, 1857, during a gale of eight days' duration, is which several other vessels were lost, the mail steamer Violet was destroyed, involving the sacrifice of many lives in the catastrophe. From these dates, it will be seen that the greatest dangers are to be apprehended in the winter months. •
These dangerous sands are said to have consisted at one time of about 4,000 acres of low land, fenced from the sea by a wall. One well-known tradition ascribes their pres ent state to the building of the Tenterden steeple, for the erection of which the funds that should have maintained the sea-wall had been diverted: this traditionary account is of little, if any, value. Lambard, in writing of theta, says: " Whatsoever old wives tell of Earle of Kent, in time of Edward the Confessour, and his sandes, it apper.reth by Hector Bolitius, the Brittish chronicler, that theise sandes weare mayne land, and some tyme of the possession of Earl Gociwyne, and by a great inundation of the sea, they weare taken therfroe, at which much harme was done in Scot land and Flanders, by the same rage of the water." At the period of the conquest by William of Normandy these estates were taken from earl Godwin, and bestowed upon the abbey of St. Augustine at Canterbury, the abbot of which allowing the sea-wall to fall into a dilapidated condition, the waves rushed in, in the year 1100, and overwhelmed the whole. How far this account of the formation of this remarkable shoal can be relied on, is a matter of considerable doubt, the documentary evidence on the subject being scanty and unsatisfactory. A colorable confirmation is, however, to be deduced from the fact of the successive inroads which the sea has made for centuries past; and is still making along the whole e. coast of England.
As a precaution, now, in foggy weather, bells in the light-ships are frequently sounded. Difficulty is experienced in finding firm anchorage for these vessels; and all efforts to establish a fixed beacon have been hitherto unsuccessful. In 1466 a light house on piles of iron screwed into the sand was erected, but at was washed away in the following year. As goon as a vessel is known to have been driven upon the sands, rockets are thrown up from the light-vessels, and the fact thus communicated to the shore. The rockets are no sooner recognized, than a number of boatmen, known all along the coast as "hovelers," immediately launch their boats and make for the sands, whatever may be the state of wind and weather. These " bovelers" regard the wreck itself as their own property, and although during fine weather they lead a somewhat regardless as well as a wholly idle and inactive life, their intrepidity in seasons of tem pest is worthy of all praise.