THE SEA AND ITS WORK 

 PROFESSOR T. H. HUXLEY 



[Part of a chapter in "Physiography: an Introduction to 

 the Study of Nature." New York, D. Appleton & Co. 



For a note on Professor Huxley see preface to his lecture 

 in Vol. Ill of these Masterpieces of Science.] 



AT Margate, where the estuary of the Thames 

 ends in the North Sea, even a blind man could not 

 stand long upon the shingly beach without know- 

 ing that the sea was busily at work. Every 

 wave that rolls in from the open ocean hurls the 

 pebbles up the slope of the beach; and then, as 

 soon as the wave has broken and the water has 

 dispersed, these pebbles come rattling down with 

 the currents that sweep back to sea. The 

 chatter of the beach thus tells us plainly that, 

 as the stones are being dragged up v and down, 

 they are constantly knocked against each other; 

 and, it is evident, that, by such rough usage, all 

 angular fragments of rock will soon have their 

 corners rounded off, and become rubbed into the 

 form of pebbles. As these pebbles are rolled to 

 and fro upon the beach they get worn smaller 

 and smaller, until, at length, they are reduced 

 to the state of sand. Although this sand is at 

 first coarse, it gradually becomes finer and finer, 

 as surely as though it was ground in a mill; and, 

 ultimately, it is carried out to sea as fine sediment, 

 and laid down tipon the ocean floor. 



On examination of the chalk cliffs, which back 

 153 



