Sea Sands 165 



shore. Wherever the coastwise currents can main- 

 tain a fairly steady and uninterrupted flow, they 

 tend to sift out their burden of sand and rock, and 

 to deposit it in even beds. The wonderful graduation 

 of the pebbles along the twelve-mile embankment 

 of the Chesil Beach is repeated on a smaller scale 

 wherever there is a steady movement of water 

 bearing shingle, grit, or sand. Beaches of mixed 

 sand and shingle may be found here and there, 

 appearing to disobey this rule ; but in most cases 

 they are merely beaches in transition, owing to some 

 shift of wind, a periodic change in the tides, or an 

 alteration in the coast-line or outer banks. If we 

 watch the shore for a week or a fortnight, we shall 

 see either the sand or the shingle entirely removed 

 or buried, so that the beach reappears in the 

 uniform simplicity of composition that gives so 

 vivid an impression of the vast resources of 

 the sea. 



Sandy shores are less characteristic of the west of 

 these islands than the east ; but they are nowhere 

 grander than when they line some Atlantic bay. 

 Such western sands are the arena of the ocean bil- 

 lows, and a foreground for the wide sea sunsets. 

 In storms the sands of the west are less impressive 

 than the cliffs which so often defend them, or even 

 than the shallow shores of the North Sea, where 

 the turmoil is cramped and intenser. The rush 

 of the whitened wall over the sands is eclipsed in 

 grandeur by its explosion against the crags. It is 

 the groundswell rolling rhythmically from the deep 

 sea in still, bright weather that makes the strangest 



