222 PRINCIPLES OF STRATIGRAPHY 



Murchison and Stevenson noted in the Bound Skerries, the 

 eastern ramparts of the Shetland Islands, a gneiss block weighing 

 73^ tons at a height of about 7 meters above sea-level, which shortly 

 before, during a southerly storm, had been dragged over a ragged 

 surface from a position 22 meters nearer the sea, and at the same 

 elevation, by the waves which broke over these cliffs. The path 

 along which the boulder was dragged was clearly marked by the 

 splinters left by the way, and the block itself showed the marks 

 of the concussions during passage. Blocks from 6 to 13 tons in 

 weight were elsewhere seen to have been transported inland at a 

 height of 20 m. above the sea. The most noteworthy case on 

 record is, however, that of the dislocation of the breakwater in the 

 harbor of Wick in North Scotland by an unusually heavy eastern 

 storm in December, 1872. The depth of water in the bay is more 

 than 10 meters, while just outside it is over 30 meters. The break- 

 water consisted, above the foundation, of three large blocks, weigh- 

 ing 80 to 100 tons each, across which a huge concrete monolith 

 weighing over 800 tons was cast in situ, and firmly anchored to the 

 blocks by iron anchors. The total mass weighed 1,350 tons, and 

 yet this mass was torn from the foundations by the successive wave 

 impacts, and l.urled into the inner harbor a distance of 10 to 15 

 meters, the monolith and the three foundation stones remaining 

 anchored together and being moved as a single mass. 



Shingle has been thrown from the beach to the roadway, 18 feet 

 above high water, at Brighton, England, by southwest gales. Sir 

 John Coode foinid that "on one occasion . . ■ S^ million tons of 

 shingle had been torn down from the Chesil Bank and carried sea- 

 ward by the waves ; and on another occasion 43^ million tons were 

 scoured out, three-fourths of which was removed back after the 

 gale ceased." (Wheeler-73 : /7.) On this same bank a laden 

 sloop of 100 tons burden became stranded during a heavy gale in 

 1824, and was cast to the top of the bank, where it was more than 

 30 feet above ordinary high water. "At Hove [England] it was 

 calculated that 27,000 tons of shingle were removed from the beach 

 in a heavy gale during one set of spring tides, and that 10,000 tons 

 were drifted along the beach in two tides on another occasion." 

 Entire shingle banks may be removed in a single storm. "In the 

 Solent, near Hurst Castle [England], a shingle bank two miles long 

 and 12 feet high, consisting principally of flints resting on a clay 

 base, was moved forward in a northeasterly direction 40 yards, 

 during a storm in 1824." (Wheeler-73 : 77.) 



Rock fragments weighing from 10 to 150 lbs. have been rolled 

 along the shore of Barnstable Bay, England, between Hartland 



