XXX111. 



were alarmed during the night by the sinking of the walls. Getting up 

 at five o'clock in the morning great force was required to open the 

 door, while large fissures had appeared in the garden. The inhabitants 

 of the neighbouring cottages were alarmed, and they proceeded to 

 remove their furniture from their dwellings as fast as possible. All 

 Christmas Day strange movements of the ground proceeded. A rabbit 

 shooting party escaped with difficulty from being swallowed up in the 

 numerous fissures, which continually opened in their path. The final 

 catastrophe occurred on Christmas night, when the whole side of the 

 cliff sank into an immense cavern, pushing into the sea the land lying 

 immediately in front of it. The Coastguard on duty stated that a noise 

 like the rending of cloth accompanied the movements of the ground, and 

 noticed a reef gradually rising above the water at some distance from the 

 shore. This newly formed land remained for some time, but disappeared 

 after one of the gales from the westwards. 



A memoir was drawn up shortly afterwards on the phenomena which 

 took place at this time by Dr. Buckland and the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, 

 in which occurs the following sentence in summing up the evidence : 

 " Although the convulsion can only be ascribed to the less dignified 

 agency of land springs constantly undermining the substrata, yet in the 

 grandeur of the disturbances it has occasioned it far exceeds the ravages 

 of the earthquakes of Calabria and almost the vast volcanic fissures of the 

 Val de Bove on the flanks of Etna." 



With the view of celebrating this famous landslip a festival was held 

 on the site on the 25th of August the following year, 1840, when " the 

 corn was reaped by a party of young ladies acting as Nymphs of Ceres. 

 Thousands of people were present, booths were erected, and the affair 

 was made as much a matter of jubilation as if in honour of some great 

 national or local achievement." 



The geological features of this landslip are described in Woodward's 

 " Geology of England and Wales." The writer states that "some of the 

 most striking landslips occur along the south coast of Devon and the 

 coast of Dorset between Sidmouth and Lyme Regis. There the chalk and 

 greensand stretch over the denuded edges of the Lower Lias, Rhaetic 

 Beds, and Red Marl, which are of clayey nature. The cretaceous beds 

 in places dip slightly towards the sea, and numerous springs are given out 

 at the junction of the greensand with the impervious strata ; portions 

 of the lower sandy beds of the greensand moreover would be actually 

 removed by springs. Therefore we should have every condition 



favourable for landslips A landslip occurred at Bere Head 



in 1790. The great landslip of Dowlands and Bindon took place at 



