COAST CHANGES. Ill 



should be recorded, and I wish that some of the Members of the 

 Club who live near the coast would walk out sometimes with the 

 six-inch map and record any changes that have taken place, and 

 any fresh slip of importance that occurs. It is only by such 

 work of recording that we can get to know how the coast is 

 going. 



Flower's Barrow, near Lulworth, an old British camp, illustrates 

 how the cliff has wasted away, for half of it has disappeared over 

 the cliff, and there can be no doubt that the ancient Britons who 

 constructed the camp made it on ground that sloped down south- 

 ward as well as northward. In all probability there will be less 

 of it in a few years. This loss of land has an economical aspect, 

 for there are cases on the east coast where whole villages have 

 utterly disappeared before the encroachment of the sea. At 

 Eccles, in Norfolk, a church built at a low level on the shore 

 has been overwhelmed by blown sand. The same thing has 

 happened in Cornwall, where we find church towers covered with 

 blown sand. 



The council of the British Association are considering the 

 advisability of memorialising the Admiralty to get the Coast- 

 guard to record the state of the coasts and report what changes 

 are going on. By this means one will be able in the future to 

 obtain prompt and accurate measurements. [Since this address 

 was given that Council has approached the Admiralty with 

 success.] 



In the Wash we have a distinct record of an opposite kind, 

 namely, how the land has grown. The Wash is silting up. An 

 indication of this is that a Roman wall which used to protect 

 the land from the inroads of the tide is now dry and about a 

 mile inland. While I was living at Lynn the land increased in 

 one place by two square miles, but this was done, not by the 

 agency of Nature alone, but by that powerful coalition, Nature 

 aided by man. Some say that the land recovered from the sea 

 makes up for the land lost. Possibly it does in area, but not in 

 height, for the land lost is far above high- water mark, whereas 

 of necessity the land recovered is below high-water, and would, 



