A RECENT LANDSLIP ON JORDAN CLIFF. 99 



have become, and, could the sea be limited in its action or 

 stopped for 100 years or so, I feel little doubt that we should 

 have a fine hillside with a series of smooth irregularly shaped 

 terraces very much like what may be seen on numbers of our 

 Dorset inland hills. 



Here, however, the sea goes on encroaching, and slips are 

 constantly occurring, so that by the time that the terraces on the 

 face of the hill are beginning to become regular and smooth, they 

 slip away and are replaced by others. In the case of a river this 

 movement must eventually come to an end, and the smoothing 

 process has afterwards an indefinite time in which to do its 

 work. In Dorset the rivers are now all sluggish, and the terraces 

 are fully formed, but, should any of them have been formed in 

 the way I suggest, they must at one time have closely resembled 

 those at present to be seen on Jordan Cliff and at many other 

 similar spots on the coast. 



NOTE. On visiting Jordan Cliff on September 3rd, 1901, I 

 found that no fresh slip had taken place since the slip of May 

 ist, 1900, which was the subject of the above paper, but the 

 surface of this "May slip" had since November, 1900, become 

 much more tilted, so that it sloped downwards towards the land 

 so as to make an angle of about 22, with the horizontal at the 

 gate, and in other parts as much as 35. This appeared to be 

 due to a further sinking of about 5 to 10 feet in different parts, 

 as the part at the gate was now about 38 feet below the top of 

 the cliff, it having been only about 30 feet in November, 1900. 

 A good deal more loose earth and stones have fallen on the gate 

 and elsewhere from the face of the cliff. The outside part of the 

 central portion of the " May slip" has also somewhat crumbled 

 down on to the terrace below, though in most places these 

 outside parts are stilt in position. The surface of the slip is 

 much broken up by cracks at the west end, though perhaps 

 hardly as much so as in November, 1900, but it has extended in 

 this direction by about 20 yards, cracks being traceable for 

 122 yards from the wall westwards. At the east end the slip has 



