THE CLIFFS AND THEIR STORY— I 



By F. MARTIN DUNCAN, F.R.P.S. 

 With Photographs by the Author 



THE white cliffs of old England ! 

 What a thrill of eager longing and 

 pleasure that simple sentence 

 brings to the hearts of those who are 

 homeward-bound, after long absence in 



:^V^ 



THE WHITE CLIFFS OF OLD ENGLAND.' 



strange lands ; and how eagerly are all 

 eyes strained to catch the first glimpse 

 of the fair white walls — Nature's ram- 

 parts — that guard our island home ! 

 Could they speak, those same white cliffs 

 that tower above us so majestically, 

 what wonderful stories could they relate 

 of the changes that have passed across 

 the face of the earth since they were 

 called into being ! P>ut, altliough the 

 cliffs cannot speak to us with articulate 

 words, we can learn much of their past 



history I)y a little careful examination 

 of their shape and composition. 



With the aid of a geological map of 

 England, we can trace the chalk under- 

 lying all that part of England situated to 

 the south-east of 

 an imaginary line 

 drawn diagonally 

 from the Dorset 

 coast to Flam- 

 fa o r o u g h Head, 

 though it is not 

 visible at the sur- 

 face all the 'way, 

 but lies hiddeh be- 

 neath deposits of 

 sands and clays. 

 The southern edge 

 of this great area 

 of chalk formation 

 has been crushed 

 and distorted up- 

 wards by some 

 great earth-move- 

 ment of the past 

 in a most remark- 

 a b 1 c manner, so 

 that in the cliffs of 

 the Isle of Wight 

 and Dorset the 

 chalk is to be seen 

 standing perpen- 

 dicularly on edge. A most delightful 

 and interesting experience is to take 

 a boat on a still, early summer morning, 

 at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, and to let 

 the boatman row you towards the Keedles, 

 keeping the boat fairly close in under the 

 cliffs. Shortly after putting out from 

 the shore, the scene becomes singularly 

 impressive, the great white cliffs towering 

 up many hundretl feet into the deej) i)lue 

 of the summer sky. Save for the sj^lash 

 of the oars, and the quiet, mysterious 



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