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the ocean. I would inciden% mention that there have, from 

 time to time, been engineering schemes proposed for making a 

 new cut from Sandwich to the sea ; first of which was com- 

 menced in 1695, and never completed. It was then proposed to 

 cut through the sand hills towards Sandown Castle, another 

 plan was proposed in 1736 ; and the last of these projects is that 

 know by the name of the Pegwell Bay Reclamation Scheme. 

 There is no doubt whatever that if such a cut were made, it 

 would bring the high water up so much further inland than at 

 present as to jeopardise the whole level ; and, to prevent such 

 an event, a clause has been introduced into the scheme to 

 compel the promoters to put in flood-gates to stop, if necessary, 

 the inflowing tide. But the same causes at work will, in that 

 event, still tend to obstruct the mouth of the river with sand 

 and beach carried by the sea past Sandown Castle. 



I may here digress to explain the action of the sea in throw- 

 ing up a natural embankment to stay the progress of its waters. 

 If we walk from Sandwich to the sea-shore by the nearest point, 

 we shall traverse some two miles of sand hills, terminating may 

 be by a shingle beach, which is considerably higher than the 

 sea at its highest tides. How is this accumulated ? I will try 

 and explain. Let us wander on the shore where the sea is rough 

 and watch the breakers ; they run up the shore in a line directed 

 by the prevailing wind and tide, charged with sand and stone?, 

 which the receding wave sweeps back with a peculiar rattling 

 roar. If the stones are large and the sea rough, we shall find 

 the larger are left on the top, the lifting power of the wave being 

 very great. If we are bathing within reach of the breakers, we 

 should find it very difficult to prevent them throwing us down 

 and rolling us on shore. A body entirely immersed in water, 

 you know, loses a great part of its weight. The waves have a 

 great power when set in motion, and exerting that power on the 

 sand and stones lift them up and dash them down again ; but if 

 the water moves meantime in any direction at right angles with 

 waves, the stones do not drop in the same line, but are carried 

 along the shore by the prevailing current. This action of the 

 waves of only between the tide marks or the space between high 

 and low water, perhaps extending at storms below the limit of 

 low water. It is evident the stones are left at rest when they 

 reach the shore beyond the influence of the wave. At neap tides 

 this is short of the influence of the water at spring tides, at 

 which time the beach accumulated below is again carried higher 

 up, then the beach is ultimately left beyond the highest tidal 

 level : during storms, should they occur at the highest tide, which 

 is very often the case (as the moon exercises its influence on 

 the atmosphere as well as the water), the beach carried by the 

 storm reaches a much higher level than the highest mean level 

 of the ocean. We thus find the sea forms a natural embankment 

 against its further progress inland. During the trituration of the 

 stones, the sand is formed and is carried in like manner. This 



