The Curious Gems of the River Thames
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
Well, that's something new I learned today. I wonder why they have to be licensed?
https://pla.co.uk/thames-foreshore-permits
>Why do I need consent?
> All the foreshore in the UK has an owner. Metal detecting, searching or digging is not a public right and as such it needs the permission of the landowner. The PLA and the Crown Estate are the largest landowners of Thames foreshore and jointly issue a permit, which is administered by the PLA, allowing all searching, metal detecting, ‘beachcombing’, scraping and digging.
Another section reads,
> The foreshore of the river Thames is a sensitive environment and London’s longest archaeological site, with finds dating back to 10,000 BCE. It is also the border to the UK’s biggest port and busiest inland waterway and must be protected and respected by all that use it.
> The Thames foreshore is a potentially hazardous environment which must be respected; it contains many dangers that may not always be immediately apparent. The Thames can rise and fall by over seven metres twice a day as the tide comes in and out. The current is fast and the water is cold.
See the river Severn, whos estuary tidal range is 15 metres, and the second highest in the world.
The original marshlands were drained gradually for agriculture, and the land sank as it dried. The southeast of the island has been sinking relative to sea level for natural reasons as well.
From the link above:
> The Embanking of the tidal Thames is the historical process by which the lower River Thames, at one time a shallow waterway, perhaps five times broader than today, winding through malarious marshlands, has been transformed by human intervention into a deep, narrow tidal canal flowing between solid artificial walls, and restrained by these at high tide.
> With small beginnings in Roman Londinium, it was pursued more vigorously in the Middle Ages. Mostly it was achieved by farmers reclaiming marshland and building protective embankments or, in London, frontagers pushing out into the stream to get more riverfront property. Today, over 200 miles of walls line the river's banks from Teddington down to its mouth in the North Sea; they defend a tidal flood plain where 1.25 million people work and live. Much of present-day London is recovered marshland: considerable parts lie below high water mark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_and_Rottingdean_Seash...
" The single car used on the railway was a 45 by 22 ft (13.7 by 6.7 m) pier-like building which stood on four 23 ft (7.0 m)-long legs."
The English have a bit of a history when it comes to looting historical artifacts. They would like to exercise some control over when they are found, I imagine.
1. Tide state, witch I did
2. Dog poo, which I didn't and there is a pub I won't ever go back to, as I discovered the poo issue quite late.
Such crystals may be eroded to more rounded forms, but some of the original plane faces may remain more or less intact.
It is hard to be sure from the image, but the garnet below the title may be not artificial, but just an eroded natural garnet that originally was a rhombic dodecahedron.
The same can be true for other faceted garnets. Only a more thorough examination can distinguish natural crystals from those that have been polished, so they have plane faces with other orientations than the faces of the natural garnet crystals.