162 WAVES OF THE SEA 



From time to time, and generally after 

 storms of exceptional severity or long duration, or 

 accompanied by high tides, the clean sand is wholly 

 removed between the levels of high and low tide, 

 and much is also removed at even lower levels. 

 We then see during low tide the eroded rock which 

 is the real floor of the foreshore. At high tide the 

 sea, even if calm, then reaches its bounding cliffs, 

 and we realise that the sandy covering of the fore- 

 shore, though generally there, is not a permanent 

 deposit, but only a covering which is stripped off 

 when the forces of the sea are really set to work. 



After the beach has been stripped by storms near 

 Branksome Chine the slope of the shore has been 

 much reduced, and in the calm weather succeeding, 

 especially with an off-shore wind, I have often 

 watched the sand being brought back and piled up 

 by the breakers in a sand Full, or ridge, often with 

 a lagoon behind it at high tide. The waves have 

 then the shoreward action on the sand which has 

 already been described in the case of shingle, the 

 settlement of the sand being, I presume, sufficiently 

 rapid in the case of these small waves in the pres^ 

 ence of little other agitation as, e.g., of tidal or 

 other currents. When the wind is off-shore there is 

 probably a slight shoreward undertow assisting, as 

 to which I shall have more to say. Apart from this, 



