GOODWIN SANDS. Dangerous banks of shifting sands stretching for a distance of about 10 miles northeast and southwest, off the east coast of Kent, England, at an average distance of from 5 to 12 miles from the shore (Map: Eng land, 11 5). The sands are divided into two por tions by a narrow channel, and at low water many parts are uncovered. When the tide re cedes the sand becomes firm and safe; but after the ebb the water permeates the mass, rendering the whole pulpy and treacherous, in which condi tion it shifts to such a degree as to render charts uncertain from year to year. They have always been dangerous to vessels passing through the Strait of Dover, bound either for the Thames or traversing the North Sea. They serve, however, as a breakwater to form a secure anchorage in the Downs (q.v.) when east or southeast winds are blowing, but become dangerous when the wind blows strongly off shore, at which time ships are apt to drag their anchors and to strand upon the Goodwin breakers, in the shifting sands of which their wrecks are soon entirely swal lowed up. Many celebrated and terribly fatal
wrecks have occurred here, and many gallant rescues by local seamen have been made. Nu merous buoys, fog-sirens, warning guns, four lightships, and the North and South Foreland lighthouses, now afford a. valuable system of warning and protection. These sands are said to have consisted at one time of about 4000 acres of lowland, fenced from the sea by a wall. At the period of the Norman Con quest these estates were taken from Earl God win and bestowed upon the Abbey of Saint Au gustine at Canterbury. the abbot of which allow ing the sea wall to fall into a dilapidated con dition, in the year 1100. the sea rushed in and submerged the whole. Year the Goodwin Sands the Dutch won a naval victory over the English in 1652.