THE USEFULNESS OF EARTHQUAKES. 2 1/ 



ravages which the sea commits upon the land here. 

 It was computed that when a certain inn was built at 

 Sherringham, seventy years would pass before the sea 

 could reach the spot: 'the mean loss of land being 

 calculated from previous observations to be somewhat 

 less than one yard annually.' But no allowance had 

 been made for the fact that the ground sloped from the 

 sea. In consequence of this peculiarity, the waste be- 

 came greater and greater every year as the cliff grew 

 lower. Between the years 1824 and 1829, no less 

 than seventeen yards were swept away ; ' and when Sir 

 Charles Lyell saw the place, only a small garden was 

 left between the building and the sea. I need hardly 

 add that all vestiges of the inn have long since 

 disappeared. Lyell also relates that, in 1829, there 

 was a depth of water sufficient to float a frigate at a 

 point where, less than half a century before, there stood 

 a cliff fifty feet high with houses upon it. 



I have selected these portions of the coast of 

 Great Britain, not because the destruction of our shores 

 is greater here than elsewhere, but as serving to illus- 

 trate processes of waste and demolition which are going 

 on around all the shores, not merely of Great Britain, 

 but of every country on the face of the earth. Here 

 and there, as I have said, there are instances in which 

 a contrary process seems to be in action. Low-lying 

 banks and shoals are formed sometimes along stretches 

 of coast extending for a considerable distance. But 

 when we consider these formations closely, we find 

 that they rather afford evidence of the energy of the 



