W. Whitaker — Geology of Coants of England and Wales. 115 



the Crag (shelly sand) with the London Clay. Here and along the 

 stretch of London Clay cliffs to Clacton there is no great protection of 

 the base of the cliff by beach, and the foreshore consists largely of 

 the clay. 



The marshes that form the coast of southern Essex are protected by 

 earthern sea-walls and are areas of accretion rather than of destruction. 

 In the midst of these marshes there are small tracts of shingle, the 

 long broken line in the marshes between the Blackwater and the 

 Crouch pointing to a former shore-line, of which the smaller patches 

 of shingle in Foulness may be an extension. 



Crossing the Thames the general movement of the shingle is in 

 a reverse direction to what we have hitherto had, that is to say, 

 westward and northward, but still toward the Thames. The cliffs of 

 Sheppey are a noted instance of continuous loss of land. Warden 

 Church and churchyard having gone in late years. The clay coast of 

 the mainland eastward also wastes steadily, and at the highest cliffs, 

 east of Heme Bay, there are often good examples of what are not 

 inaptly termed mud-glaciers, streams of moist broken-up clay that flow- 

 down the slopes and are crevassed as ice-flows are. At Reculvers 

 the Roman station has been destroyed to the extent of a half, and it is 

 only by careful protective work that the twin towers of the old church 

 within the walls have been kept. 



The Chalk of the Isle of Thanet forms a huge natural breakwater, 

 without which there would have been great destruction of the softer 

 Tertiary beds to the west and south. This tract is a good example of 

 the effect of joint-planes on the erosion of cliff's. There is a dominant 

 set of these planes, roughly from N.W. to S.E., and these have led to 

 the cutting out of projecting masses and sometimes of isolated stacks. 

 The line of cliff from Foreness to White Ness, at the north-eastern 

 part, is cut along such joint-planes. In the neighbourhood of 

 llamsgate sets of small faults, some too small to be shown on the map, 

 have a marked effect. 



On reaching the marshes of the Stour we find a point of some 

 interest in regard to changes in coastal conditions. In Kent, as has 

 been said above, the general movement of the shingle is toward 

 the Thames, which in this case means northward from Deal toward 

 Thanet. In accordance with this the shingle of the coast and its 

 accompanying Blown Sand form a ridge with a northerly extension, 

 ending at the Stour ; but a little Avay in from the shore of Thanet we 

 have evidence that once it was otherwise. We have there a short 

 shingle-bank running from the higher land at Cliffs End over the 

 marshes south-westward, and then another and longer bank from the 

 rising land at Half Way House southward across the marshes to 

 Stonar, where it ends in a broader mass. These shingle-banks, which 

 show old shores, must have been formed from the north to the south, 

 or in the reverse direction to the later shingle of the present coast. _ 



Here, too, we have another good example of the deflection of a river 

 by the gradual lengthening of a beach. The Stour must once have 

 flowed direct to the sea ; but by the extension of the old beach it has 

 been driven down southward to Sandwich, when it returns northward 

 (getting close to its course on the other side of the beach at Stonar 



