860 EEPORT— 1886. 



Whitesand Bay about 1,000 yards ; that at Aberma'5\T about 800 yards. All the other 

 bars are under 500 yards in length, measuring along the ridge. 



There are evidences that nearly all these bars are increasing in height and base. 



The pebbles are principally fragments from the local rocks, and the pebbles are 

 usually well rounded. 



There are no groynes on this coast. Generally speaking, the shingle does not 

 travel in any direction except landwards. At Newgale and Whitesand Bay the 

 shingle travels slightly in a N.N.W. direction. 



It is a common practice amongst local farmers to take the sea-sand in large 

 quantities for mixing with manure for agricultural purposes. The gravel and pebbles 

 are also taken, where available, for road-making. 



The range of tide is generally about 17 feet at spring tide, about 11 feet at 

 Beap tide. The tides run six knots at spring tide through Ramsey Sound with 

 strong eddies near all the points. Flood to the north, ebb to the south, curving 

 round St. David's and into St. Bride's Bay, where they get very weak. 



The prevailing winds are south-west to north-west, and these are of most im- 

 portance in raising high waves. 



JVbrth-east of St. David's Head. — At Abermawr the sea has driven back the 

 shingle very considerably in recent years. A limekiln at the eastern end of the bay 

 and a roadway which was carried round a point to the adjacent creek of Aberbach 

 have been washed away. About an acre of land, a large portion of which was under 

 cultivation, has been eroded in the course of 60 years. In the winter of 1885, during 

 a heavy gale from the northward, the sea drove back the shingle all along its 

 line, but chiefly in its centre, partly tilling up a roadway at the back and damming 

 up a stream, causing it to flood the adjoining meadows, and necessitating the closing 

 of the highway. Here, as at Newgale and Whitesand Bay, submerged trees have 

 been seen after a gale. In the memory of a resident, now about 80 years of age, 

 the trees thus exposed in his earlier days were used for firewood and other purposes, 

 and he remembers a sleigh, for use on a farm, being made from the wood. All the 

 wood obtained was in a good state of preservation. 



The beach at Abercastle has been cut into by the sea about 50 yards during the 

 last 50 years. 



At Abereiddy the beach has been increased to the extent of about 50 yards on the 

 sea side, the additional shingle having accumulated from the waste of a neigh- 

 bouring slate quarrj-. 



The beach at Aberpwll has been eroded to the extent of 10 yards within the 

 memory of the present residents. 



Whitcmnd Bay. — This bay is mainly excavated in drift, the bounding cliffs on 

 the north and sovith being formed of Cambrian rocks. [The drift consists of an 

 •earthy boulder clay containing ice-scratched boulders, mainly fragments of local 

 rocks; many of these boulders lie along the shore. — H. HiCKS.] 



The shingle beach is about 1,000 yards long, with a maximum width of about 

 SO feet, and a mean width of about 40 feet. The seaward face has many small 

 irregular ridges. The shingle travels slightly towards the north end of the bay, and 

 in this direction therefore the beach is widest. 



The sand on the foreshore is 208 yards wide— from low-water mark to the beach. 



Blown sand covers the ground inside tlie beach, in little hillocks of fiom 12 to 15 

 feet high, each having a seaward slope of from 23° to 25°. The land thus thinly 

 covered with sand-hiUs rises to about 100 feet above the sea, but the sand is some- 

 times carried inland as far as the stream which runs to St. David's, about a mile 

 from the shore. This blown sand does not affect the coast-line, except in such places 

 where it is exposed to the direct action of the waves, by which it is easily eroded, 

 and is then carried out to sea (subsequently to undergo re-deposition) by the rapid 

 eddies formed by the swift tidal current finding its way through Ramsey Sound. 



The sea has made considerable inroads at Whitesand Bay, the shingle moving 

 landwards. A rock now 20 yards from the beach marks "the site of the road 

 forty years ago, the shingle beach being then on the seaward side of the road. The 

 new road, made twenty years ago, was protected by a sea-wall ; but this has been in 

 part destroyed and great gaps cut into the road. At the north-east corner of the 

 bay there is a field which has lost a width of about 34 yard's in fifty years. 



In the northern part of the ba)' stumps of trees and peat are laid bare during 

 westerly gales, when the sand of the foreshore is cleared away. 



Portli-seli is a smaU inlet on the southern side of Whitesand Bay, separated from 



