W. Whitaher — Geology of Coasts of England and Wales. 53 



rivers, and have been observed and described wherever large dock- 

 works have been made in the lower parts of river-valleys : elsewhere 

 it is comparatively rare to find sections in Alluvium, the beds as a rule 

 being not worth digging for economic purposes and moreover being 

 dug into with difficulty, from their low position and consequent 

 water- logged state. 



Movement of upheaval, of rather earlier date, is shown by the 

 occurrence of sea-beaches or terraces at levels approximately parallel 

 with the present shore-line, but sometimes considerably above it. 

 These often yield shells of like kind to those of the present coast, 

 and so clearly prove a former difference in the relation between sea 

 and land. Naturally such occurrences are confined to the harder rocks, 

 the softer ones having been so cut back by the sea that all such remains 

 have been carried away. In the South East of England there is no 

 evidence of these beds, and, generally speaking, they occur only at 

 a number of detached sites. 



There is one point of caution, I fear not always attended to, in 

 taking the evidence (as to rise of land) of a recent marine deposit 

 above the present range of the tide. In heavy storms the waves can 

 force up beach some way above the level of the water, and therefore 

 it is possible that, on a coast being cut back, isolated masses of such 

 piled up beach may be left perched on the top of a very low cliff, 

 and may be thought to show rise of land, whereas in truth they do 

 not, their isolated position being due to the gentle incline, which once 

 reached from them to the beach, having been cut away, so that its 

 higher inland end now alone remains. 



I have seen, too, in the low part of the coast of Sussex (by Selsea) 

 shingle that at one place shows a continuous slope up from the beach 

 to the land, whilst some yards off a few feet of cliff separates this 

 higher shingle from that at the base. In this case the shingle had 

 been driven up through a farmyard, and therefore was distinctly 

 modern. 



Special Pakts of the Coast. 



As the parts to which I have been asked to give special attention 

 have all been described in Geological Survey Memoirs, and the coastal 

 changes noticed in those publications or in the Reports of the British 

 Association Committee (some years ago), there is no need to go into 

 great detail. Some parts, moreover, I have not seen for several years, 

 and therefore have had to depend on information from other people as 

 regards later changes. There is need indeed of resident observers in 

 all districts where much change is going on. 



From Lynn to Wells, Norfolk. I 



From Lynn northward to Hunstanton we are dealing with the 

 eastern border of the Wash, and therefore for the most part with 

 a district of accretion. During the three years of my residence at the 

 former place, which ended in 1884, I got a detailed knowledge of this 

 district and was able to record a large reclamation of land, since the 

 publication of the old Ordnance map and partly made, near Lynn, 

 whilst I was there. The Lower Greensand and the Drift beds that 



