TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 855 
points, and aggradation would necessarily occur when more waste was supplied 
than the sea could carry. This aggradation would take place where the action of 
the sea wasting was least. The writer has suggested eddies in the tidal in and 
outflow as the determining agent in the location of some of the cuspate forelands.' 
Topley recognised the action of the sea upon the oldland previous to the build- 
ing out of this foreland. He said: ‘Along the northern boundary of Romney 
Marsh the termination of the Weald Clay is certainly an old sea-cliff, now worn 
down into undulating ground.’* The much fresher cliff north from Rye along the 
military road indicates a more recent action of the sea upon this portion of the 
initial shoreline. 
The geographic interpretation from form is corroborated by the history and 
tradition of Romney Marsh.’ 
The historical students of Romney Marsh do not sufficiently regard the line of 
former shorelines indicated by the ridges of shingle, but place rather too much 
reliance upon outlines given on early maps, many of which show poor sketching 
and little knowledge of geographic form. It has been very common to attribute 
the formation of this great deposit to the tides, but the details of the process have 
not been explained except in a most general manner by such expression as the 
‘meeting of the tides.’ 
Diagrams were shown illustrating the formation of tidal cuspate forelands, 
and it was pointed out that Dungeness with its included marshes corresponds to 
the filled stage plus cutting back and rebuilding of the Point. 
The most recent curves of aggradation are very prettily shown at the Point 
when ‘looking toward the centre of the cuspate foreland from the lighthouse. 
Recent observations at the Point indicate that this shoreline is here advancing at 
the rate of 9 feet a year. A mile to the west the sea is at present cutting into 
the shingle. Upon the eastern side of this foreland there are some twenty-three 
successive shorelines shown between Lydd and the present shoreline. These all 
curve sympathetically, indicating steps in the eastward growth of the foreland. 
These ridges are not absolutely parallel or continuous, for some twenty lines of 
‘aggradation at the Point were traced by the writer into fourteen at a point a mile 
north, and these fourteen were in turn traced into seventeen ridges at a point a 
couple of miles further north! At one time there seems to be greater advance in 
one place, and when thé complex conditions which govern depositions are changed 
another point receives the most waste, 
The hypothetical initial) shoreline ‘was indicated by a diagram. Where the 
cliffs are high the initial land has presumably been most cut back. Behind the 
foreland the land probably did not extend a great deal farther than the present 
low cliff or ‘ nip’ which was made in the youth of the present cycle. 
On account. of the graded form the present coast may appropriately be said to 
be in adolescence, following Professor Davis’ use of this term for land surfaces.* 
English sailors have recognised forms similar to Dungeness, and have applied 
the same name to forelands of like geological structure in Puget Sound, and south 
of Patagonia in the Straits of Tierra del Fuego. 
f 5, Last Year's Work of the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition. 
By A. Monreriore Brice, 
» Loe. cit:, p. 413. 
2 Geol. Weald, pp. 251, 302. 
3 See Cingue Ports, by. Montague Burrows; also writings of Robertson, Wn. 
Hollaway, Wm. Somner, F. H. Appach, Hasted, A. J. Burrows, and many other refe- 
rences in Topley’s Geology. of the Weald. ‘ 
4See Geog. Jour., vol. v. 1895, p. 127; ‘Rivers and Valleys of Pennsylvania.’ 
‘Nat. Geog. Mag., p.1; ‘Geog. Development of N. New Jersey’ (with J, W. Wood, 
jun.), Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 1889. 
