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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



towns the greater damage was suffered where the bar was lowest, or 

 where the defenses were weakest. One of the lowest places on the bar 

 was occupied by the Octagon Hotel, which was completely destroyed 

 (Fig. 2). For a great distance along this low region the shore was 

 cut back from 100 to 150 feet, and the damage to buildings was greater 

 than elsewhere. Both north and south of Low Moor station are 

 unusually high portions of the bar, and here the advance of the sea was 

 not so great, even where the defences were battered down and the 

 houses partially undermined. A maximum of not more than 50 to 70 

 feet of the shore front was cut away in this region, while the sea gained 

 nothing from the land where the bulkheads remained intact. On the 

 other hand, there are plenty of instances where unusually weak de- 

 fences failed to prevent fairly extensive erosion of comparatively high 

 areas, and where strong defences saved low areas from attack. 



Variations in the character of the material composing a coast neces- 

 sarily influence the wave erosion. In the Seabright district there is not 

 enough of such variation in the material of the bar to be of any im- 

 portance. The bar first formed some distance seaward of its present 

 position, and has been pushed landward by the waves. A salt marsh 

 formed back of the bar, and the sands of the latter have been driven in 

 over the surface of the marsh deposits. Hence, the wave-cut cliff on 

 the seaward edge of the bar shows at the base a layer of somewhat 

 indurated black sand, mud and peat, projecting as a little terrace where 

 recently exposed. Above this the yellow-brown beach sands constitute 

 the rest of the cliff, which stands nearly or quite vertical where 

 recently cut into. As these conditions appear to be essentially uniform 

 along the length of the bar under discussion, there is little difference in 



Fig. 5. House Undermined by Waves and Tilted Bodily into Sea. 



