XVIII Sea Sands 



THE sandy shores which are so common on many 

 parts of the English coasts are characteristic of 

 strong tidal seas. Only a sea with a range of at 

 least twelve or fifteen feet at the neap-tides can 

 maintain these wide margins of debatable ground, 

 belonging alternately to the upper and the under 

 worlds, and renewed twice in every twenty-four 

 hours by the pristine forces of nature. Familiar 

 with the almost tideless waters of the Mediter- 

 ranean, Caesar on his first inroad into Britain 

 found nothing "more noteworthy than the force of 

 the Kentish tides ; and half of the drowsy fascina- 

 tion of Mediterranean waters for the northerners 

 is due to their withdrawal from the stir of the 

 Atlantic. 



Sand will not lie banked at so steep an angle as 

 shingle ; and this is another reason which adds to 

 the spaciousness of many sandy shores when the 

 tide is out, and the shore birds return to their 

 cleaned and replenished feeding-grounds. Differ- 

 ences of current and wind produce curious variations 

 in the composition and compactness of the beds 

 newly strewn by each tide. But it almost always 

 happens that a sandy shore borders a shallow sea, 

 and is bared at low water to a long distance out from 



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