92 A RECENT LANDSLIP ON JORDAN CLIFF. 



gate-posts and gate, and some iron railing, all uninjured and in 

 the positions they occupied when on the cliff above. The con- 

 tinuation of this wall runs for some distance straight inland, 

 and its broken end is shown in Fig. 2, slightly overhanging the 

 present edge of the top cliff. I am told by a coastguard at the 

 Preston Coastguard Station that on the night of April 3oth, 

 1900, the coastguard on duty walked along the edge of the 

 cliff as usual, and passed through the very gate which a few 

 hours afterwards sank down 30 feet, and that there was then 

 no sign of any movement. On the morning of May ist, 

 at about six o'clock, he was on duty at the station, which is 

 rather less than f mile from the landslip in a straight line, when 

 he heard a loud rumbling sound, which only lasted a short time, 

 and which he took to be the firing of guns, though he wondered 

 at their being fired at that unusual time. About 8 o'clock the 

 farmer came to tell him what had occurred. Though the main 

 slip lasted for a very short time only, he says that masses of earth 

 and stones from the cliff continued to fall into the sea for several 

 days. 



When I first visited the spot at the end of August, I found that 

 a strip of land covered with turf, from 8 to 10 yards broad and 

 about 200 yards long, had sunk down almost vertically to a depth 

 of 30 feet in the middle, but with a slight downward slope 

 towards the land, which in November amounted to about 15, 

 but was then slightly less. The strip runs nearly east and west, 

 the east end being at the extreme summit of the hill marked 

 Jordan Cliff in the map in Damon's Geology of Weymouth. It 

 is the hill immediately to the east of the River Jordan, which 

 forms a cliff on the coast, and not what is usually known as 

 "Jordan Hill," which is composed of Oxford clay, and on which 

 the Preston Coastguard Station stands. This latter hill lies to 

 the west of the Jordan. 



The strip composing this landslip, which I shall allude to as 

 the " May slip," slopes gently downwards towards the west. It 

 ends abruptly on the east, at about 100 yards from the wall 

 mentioned above, and was at first joined on to the cliff at this 



