378 ACTION OF THE SEA UPON COASTS. 



Thus the reefs of coral which had been raised in the 

 Red Sea on the east of Egypt, and the sands of the de- 

 sert which invade it on the west, concur in attesting 

 this truth : That our continents are not of a more re- 

 mote antiquity than has been assigned to them by the 

 sacred historian in the book of Genesis, from the great 

 era of the deluge. 



NOTE H, p. 30. 

 Action of the Sea upon Coasts. 



THE ocean, in its action upon the cliffs and banks si- 

 tuated on the coast, breaks them down to a greater or 

 less extent, and either accumulates the debris at their 

 basis in the form of sea beaches of greater or less mag- 

 nitude, or by currents carries it away to be deposited 

 upon other shores, or to give rise to sand-banks near 

 the coast, which, in the course of time, become united to 

 the land, and thus secure it from the further action of 

 the sea. These destroying and forming effects of the 

 waters of the ocean are to be observed all around the 

 coasts of this island ; and beautiful examples of such ac- 

 tions are to be seen on the coasts of Ireland, and in 

 many of the islands that lie to the west and north of 

 Great Britian. In a paper read before the Wernerian 

 Natural History Society, Mr Stevenson, engineer, men- 

 tions many facts illustrative of the destroying effects 

 of the ocean on our coasts. Thus he informs us that 

 the waters of the sea are wearing away the land up- 

 on both sides of the Frith of Forth, not only in expo- 

 sed, but also in sheltered situations, and the solid strata, 

 as well as the looser alluvial formations, which owe their 



