GULLIVER. — SHORELINE TOPOGRAPHY. 235 



the shore (C. S., 180, 181). These two sheets show almost no iudica- 

 tion of alongshore work. The shoreline is minutely irregular from the 

 dissections of the tidal runways. The bottom is very shallow, the three- 

 fathom line extending on an average eight miles from the shoreline. 

 The average rise of the tide is here 2.5 feet. 



The runways off this coast are not so deep nor so markedly dendritic 

 as in the succeeding case, but the stream pattern is very irregular. 



Schleswig-Holstein Type. — On the west coast of the Schleswig-Holstein 

 peninsula (Germ., 5, 11, 20, 21, 35, 36, 37, 55, 56, 79, 80, 109, 110, 

 111) occurs an example of marked tidal scour. The west coast of the 

 Schleswig-Holstein peninsula from the mouth of the Elbe to the Danish 

 boundary is low and flat, with many outlying islands of the same char- 

 acter. The spaces between islands and mainland are occupied by broad 

 flats, bare at low tide, with steep-sided channels dissecting them. Some 

 of these channels are continuations of existing valleys on the mainland, 

 and were possibly cut when the land stood higher. Others however 

 head upon the flats, and appear to be runways cut by the tide. The 

 volume of water covering the broad flats at high tide must have con- 

 siderable scouring power when confined in these narrow channels, and it 

 has probably cut many new channels and deepened previously existing 

 inequalities. 



Offsets, overlaps, and stream deflections indicate a dominant current 

 from the right in this region, whose existence is proved by observation.* 

 Generalizations need to be followed by detailed study and observation 

 of localities. Wherever possible to include facts of local observation, it 

 has here been done, but of many localities there are no descriptions. In 

 the present case it is possible to compare the rate of alongshore current 

 and the range of tides. 



The resultant for the year 1880-81 of the northward flowing current 

 along the west coast of Jutland was eighteen nautical miles in twenty-four 

 hours or 0.75 mile per hour.f The rate of flow is probably not so 

 great along the less exposed coast immediately north of the Elbe river. 

 The range of the tides off this west coast of the Schleswig-Holstein 

 peninsula is from 2.75 meters to 3.50 meters (Germ., 20). 



The volume of water which flows off these flats must be large on 

 account of the breadth of the area flooded at high tide. The form 

 plainly indicates that with the above ratio between alongshore currents 



* H. Mohn, The North Ocean, p. 166, PI. XLIII. 

 t Loc. cit., p. 168. 



