50) 
would percolate through the joints till it reached an impermeable 
stratum of clay, when springs would be formed, and often in such 
abundance as to cause a land slide. The “ landslip” at Axemouth 
was shown as anexample. By these processes the land was being 
gradually wasted, the effects of the waste being most apparent on 
the sea shore, where the waste was increased by the action of the 
waves. ‘The action of the waves was considered, both on a flat 
shelving shore and on arocky, precipitous coast ; in ordinary calm 
weather and in violent storms. 
On a flat shelving coast with soft rock, such as the Hast coast 
of England, the waste of land was very rapid. All along the 
northern shore of the Thames’ estuary to the Naze, from thence 
round the coasts of Suffolk and Norfolk, the loss of land had been 
very considerable in the past, and was still going on in spite of 
all efforts to prevent it. The cliff at Clacton-on-Sea was shown 
as an example, and the efforts made to protect it by embankments 
and sea walls were described. These, though locally successful 
for a time, could not protect the whole coast ; e.g., at Dunwich, 
where a once prosperous seaport containing six churches, and, in 
Saxon times, the see of a bishop, had been destroyed. Only one 
church, the ruin of which was about eleven yards from the edge 
of the cliff, now remained. At Aldeburgh and Cromer also the 
waste of the cliff was conspicuous ; and equally so in the Holder- 
ness district, which had lost at the rate of two yards annually for 
the last two centuries. 
The formation of shingle from the waste of the cliffs, the 
efforts made to hold it by means of groynes in front of the cliffs, 
its travelling and accumulation in the form of ridges, as the 
Aldeburgh Beach, Hust Point, the Chevil Bank, &c., were then 
described with the help of views. And the famous pebble ridge 
at Westward Ho! North Devon, was fully described, as well as 
its encroachments on the Northam Burrows, with abundant 
illustration. Mr. Osborn having lived at Westward Ho! for 
nearly three and a half years. 
The combined influences of atmospheric and marine denudation 
of the harder rocks were next described. The chalk of Beachy 
Head, Shalespeare’s Cliff, Dover, and the recent fall of the cliff 
at St. Margaret’s Bay, were all illustrated, and explained to be 
caused by infiltration of water into the joints of the rocks, and 
the vibration of the mass caused by the ceaseless thundering of 
the waves at the foot of the cliffs. 
Before describing the erosion of the harder rocks of the 
Western coast, where the effects of the action of the sea waves 
were more conspicuous than the results of atmospheric forces, 
the Lecturer described the violence of the storm waves, which 
sometimes had a force of nearly three tons to the square foot; 
