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



cliff, a little Blown Sand had accumulated at the foot and had heen 

 artificially helped to form a protection, so that here erosion was 

 checked, whereas when I was first there, many years ago, it was going 

 on markedly. At Covehithe I have measured the greatest loss of land 

 that has come under my notice, namely, about 60 feet in a year. In 

 nine years (1878-87) the loss was at the rate of something over 

 18 feet a year. 



Easton Bavent (a place now gone) is also a case of continuous 

 marked loss, and I was able to take measurements from 1878 to 1882. 

 Others taken before and since are noticed in the Geological Survey 

 Memoir on the district (1887). At a later visit, however, I found 

 a change in the course of things ; what had been a fairly clear cliff, 

 showing a long and good section of shelly Crag below gravel, had 

 changed to a weathered-down slope, with no sign of the Crag except 

 where rabbits had obligingly made holes at one part. Erosion there- 

 fore had been checked here. On the other hand, whilst I was living 

 at Southwold (1878, etc.) there was practically no change there, but 

 since then erosion has occurred to a considerable extent, and has been 

 duly recorded by Mr, Spiller.^ 



At Dunwich again, one of the most noted places in the matter of 

 coast-loss, there was practically no change while I was first in that 

 neighbourhood, and apparently there had been very little for some 

 years, there being a good deal of talus at the base of the cliff, so that 

 none of the shelly Crag was to be seen. Up to 1897, indeed, there 

 were but two or three geologists who had seen that bed in the southern 

 part of this cliff, and they had seen but little of it. But then the base 

 of the cliffs having been swept bare, good sections of shelly Crag were 

 seen by many observers (including myself) in 1898, and the cliffs were 

 again cut back. From Easton Bavent to Dunwich, therefore, in the 

 course of less than thirty years there has been a good deal of vacillation 

 in the process of erosion. 



The growth of the shingle-spit southward from Aldeburgh is 

 remarkable. The Aide must have once flowed direct to the sea just 

 south of that town, whereas now it has been doubled back south- 

 westward for several miles, not joining the sea until past Hollesley. 

 Some day perhaps the river may be able to force a passage through 

 a narrow part of the shingle, either by Aldeburgh or by Havergate 

 Island. This sort of thing has happened in the past, as also, to my 

 knowledge, near Christchurch, in Hants. 



Some miles further on the shorter shingle-spit of Landguard Common 

 seems to have slightly deflected the combined channel of the Orwell 

 and Stour. The shingle can hardly cross this broad and fairly deep 

 water, and the London Clay cliff of Dovercourt has, therefore, little 

 protection from the sea, the foreshore consisting of that clay, with 

 layers of cement-stone. These stones make a sort of pavement where 

 they have not been removed, as they once were, for the manufacture 

 of Eoman cement ; that removal probably facilitated the cutting back 

 of the cliff. 



At the Naze slips occur, water being thrown out at the junction of 



1 Geol. Mag., 1896, pp. 23-27. 



