422 REPORT—1885. 
19. There is one point on which I wish to make a remark, and that is, the univer- 
sally prevailing opinion among the seafaring people on the south coast, that 
the sea is gaining on the land. This belief prevails at least from Portland to 
the Scilly Isles. Such a change can take place in two ways: one is, that the 
cliffs are receding before the waves, and the other is, that the land is going 
down. I have said above, at No. 14, that the land is being worn away by the 
sea; and I may add that for twenty years past I have had a growing convic- 
tion that the land is going down. Not only does the sea appear higher and 
fuller than it used to do at high water, and points of land harder to go round 
at all times of the tide than when I was a boy, which signs, however, are not 
conclusive, but I have alluded to the submerged forest, and I may also allude 
to ‘the foundations,’ as some massive stone walls are called, supposed once to 
have been a habitable building, and within my memory generally uncovered, 
but not now. They are under the shingle, 30 feet outside the esplanade, and 
opposite Marlborough Place and Portland House. Like the stumps of trees, 
they are several feet under water at high tide. As to the rate of subsidence, 
I have thought that 10 inches in 100 years would be enough. In 800 years, 
or since the Norman Conquest, that would be 10 x 8 inches = 80 inches 
= 6 feet 8 inches. If the foundations and the trees were 6 feet 8 inches 
higher at the Conquest they would have been above the water, and the coast- 
line some distance farther out. 
2. Lyme Regis and Charmouth. 
By RicHARD B. GRANTHAM, F.G.S., M.Inst.C.E., 22 Whitehall Place, London. 
1. I have had occasion to examine the part of the coast of Dorsetshire lying between 
the town of Lyme Regis and the valley of the Char, near Charmouth. 
2. Commencing from the west, along the cliff from Lyme Regis, the cliff consists 
of the Lower Lias Clay and Limestone, at first about 40 feet high, and at the 
highest part it rises to about 300 feet, and consists of blue Lias clay, capped 
with chert gravel, which is above the Lias, and overlies the Greensand. The 
cliff then descends to the River Char, and from the river eastwards the same 
formation appears on the cliffs, but they do not here exceed 50 to 70 feet in 
height. The land rises inland from the cliffs, but not very much. The shore 
as far as low water consists of thin beds of Lias rock, dipping slightly towards 
the east and seawards, and is the base of the cliffs. Water percolates from 
under the chert bed and Greensand, and finds its way down to the Lias beds, 
and appears on the face of the cliffs, and causes them to slip in large masses 
by degrees into the sea. This refers to the cliff where it is 300 feet and 
upwards in height. 
3. The direction of the coast-line, after leaving the town of Lyme Regis, forms a bay 
bearing eastwards, and then curves back inland and continues east by south. 
4. The prevailing wind is from the south-west, and is probably the cause of heavy 
seas. 
5. There is no shingle. ; 
6. They run up Channel towards the east and back to the west. The set of the tides ‘ 
between Beer Head and Portland Bill for eight miles east of the former is very 
various, and up to the latter is also extremely complicated and most difficult — 
to describe. (See the ‘Admiralty Tide-tables,’ page 109.) , 
7. (1) The tides rise between Lyme Regis and Bridport 11} to 11}. The neap tides. 
rise in the same distance from "Sh to 73. (2) The width varies from 200 to 
230 yards at the mouth of the Char. 
8. It consists of bare rock, as before described. 
12. There are no groynes or shingle. 
14. I could get no information as to the erosion or its position, and there are no 
local points to judge from. 
16. Generally, along this coast there are no means of judging of any increase of land. 
