54 W. Whitaker — Geology of Coasts of England and Wales. 



fringe it in parts are here separated from tlie Wash by a strip of low 

 alluvial land, down to the neighbourhood of Hunstanton Station, and 

 along the northern part of this the Alluvium, in its turn, is bordered 

 and protected by a strip of shingle, my few notes on which seem to 

 have escaped publication. 



At New Hunstanton, the watering-place on our eastern coast which 

 faces westward, we have a clifF, for about 1 J miles, with Boulder Clay 

 at the southern end, but mainly of Chalk underlain by the ferruginous 

 earstone of the Lower Greensand, which last dips down out of sight at 

 the northern end. The earstone makes a firm base and runs out along 

 the foreshore as a rocky mass, separated into blocks along the planes 

 of jointing. The Chalk, too, is fairly hard, and I saw nothing but 

 very slight falls from the cliff. 



' From Hunstanton eastward there are no cliffs. The Chalk slopes 

 gently northward and then, along the line of villages to beyond 

 Burnham Deepdale, is covered by Drift (Boulder Clay and Gravel). 

 This Drift must extend further north under the marshes, the outer 

 parts of which are to some extent protected by bars of Shingle and 

 Blown Sand. Further eastward, to and beyond "Wells, the Chalk 

 dften reaches down to the Alluvium, though sometimes there is Drift 

 between. 



Along this somewhat peculiar coast there have probably been many 

 changes in the shore-deposits, as may be seen by a comparison of the 

 old Ordnance map with the new one. This also shows great shifting 

 in the courses of the streams that flow through the low alluvial ground 

 to the sea. 



[The tract between "Wells and Yarmouth was described by Mr. C. 

 Reid, with much other matter, in pp. 163-172 of the Appendices to 

 the Eeport.] 



From Yarmouth to Easthourne. 



The long stretch of sea-bord now to be noticed gives some of the 

 best examples that we have of the loss of land by coast-erosion, and it 

 will be well to start with a short account of its geologic features. 



Beginning at Yarmouth with the most recent beds (Blown Sand 

 over Alluvium), for many miles southward we have nothing but Drift 

 and Crag (which for our purpose may be grouped together). These 

 consist here of Boulder Clay above (as far as Kessingland) with gravels 

 and sands below, the thin clayey beds of the TJpper Crag showing in 

 places at or near the base. 



From Gorleston to Kessingland the low cllfi is breached only by the 

 narrow valley of Lake Lothing, at Lowestoft; but southward of 

 Kessingland the Alluvium of the many valleys reaches down to the 

 beach to a considerable extent, so that we have but short lines of low 

 clifP, attaining a length of about 2 miles southward from Dunwich 

 (where too the cliff is higher than elsewhere) and of about 2^ miles 

 from Sizewell to Thorpe. 



Southward from Aldeburgh there is a change. We come to one 

 of our great shingle-tracts, and for nearly 1 1 miles (measuring on the 

 Geological Survey map) we have a strip of beach with the sea on one side 

 and the River Aide on the other, a tract of slight accretion. A little 



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