Crossword-Solution: ACCRETING 9 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 14

Geikie: “How many centuries rolled past while that old pavement was slowly accreting, no one can say; but that it represents a lapse of ages compared to which the time embraced by all tradition and written history is but as a few months, who that is competent to form an opinion can doubt?” But after this long period of quiet, from some source great torrents of water came rolling through the cave.

From where he sat he could see the village of Hilton, strung upon the North Road, with its accreting suburbs; the sunset beyond, scarlet and orange, winking at him beneath brows of grey; the church; the plantations; and behind him an unspoilt country of fields and farms.

With the mortality rate at zero and the birth-rate at non-zero, the world was inexorably accreting a dense carpet of people, even with the migratory and deadhead drains on the population.