47 



450 feet in thickness, the cliffs on the nortli coast affording excellent 

 sections of this turtiiuy deposit. Tlic Bagshot Sands are repre- 

 sented to a limited extent in Sheppcj^, being geologically interesting 

 as showing the upward extent of the London clay. The London, 

 Chatham, and Dover Railway, from Bekcsbourne, near Canterbury, 

 to the Crystal I'alace, on the western borders of Kent, maybe taken 

 roughly as the southern limits of the tertiary deposits of North Kent. 

 In the immediate neighbourhood of Canterbury tliey are still prin- 

 cipally covered by the forest of Blean, partly owing to the cold and 

 unproductive luiture of the London clay. The scenery they give 

 rise to, though still undulating in some respects like the clialk, has 

 not the peculiar swelling outlines of the latter, nor when covered 

 with grass, its crisp short herbage. The alluvium of the river 

 valley, with the gravels, brick-earths, clays, and peat, belongs to 

 tlie subsequent or quartcrnary period, and by filling up the valleys 

 causes thera to retain the level appearance of tlie water that once 

 occupied them. The gravel beds lying on tlie liill tops near 

 llarbledown, Bigberry Wood, and the Old Park, above tlie Barracks, 

 and several places in Blean, appear to have formed caps, which have 

 resisted denudation taking place to the same extent as it has on the 

 undefended surfaces, and thus occupy elevated positions. (See 

 annual report for 1878.) On the north coast the yielding nature of 

 these tertiary deposits has occasioned considerable loss of land. 

 Heme Bay has long ceased to exhibit the characteristic geographi- 

 cal features tliat its name would indicate. During the historical 

 period a great deal of land has been swept away in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Keculver Churcli, for in Henry the YII.'s reign 

 it is stated to have been nearly one mile from the sliore. In 

 1780 the Avails of the Roman camp, eighty yards nearer the sea 

 than the church, fell down, although they had long projected over 

 the edge of the cliff there about twenty-five feet above the sea, held 

 together by the Roman cement. (See Topographica Brivannica.) 

 In 180 1 the churcliyard, with some buildings, were washed away; 

 until this time tlic church seems to have been used as a ])lace of 

 ■worship. The Isle of Sheppy, about six miles long by four broad, 

 Avitli cliffs on the uorth coast of from sixty to eiglity feet in height, 

 lost fifty acres in the twenty years between 1810 and 1830. Minster 

 church, now near the coast, is said to have been in the middle of the 

 island in 1780. The loss of land on the north coast of tlie Lsle of 

 Thanct is about two feet in a year and on the east coast three feet. 

 (For some very interesting facts regarding the waste of the coast, 

 sec LyeU's Principles, vol. 1, page 522 to 6o0.) Ilonian sliips sailed 

 between the Isle of Thanet and the mainland. Bede describes 

 this channel as being about three furlongs wide, in the be- 

 ginning of the 8th century, and it appears to have silted up about 

 the time of the Conquest. The Goodwin Sands are traditionally said 

 to have been once an island called Lome, suddenly overwhelmed by 



