126 Reviews — Sheppard's Lost Towns of Yorkslvire Coast. 



pre-Glacial to the district. The final chapter contains a useful 

 summary of the author's observations and conclusions, and it is 

 followed by a good index. 



III. — The Lost Towns of the Yorkshire Coast, and other chapters 



BEARING upon THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE DISTRICT. By ThOMAS 



Sheppard, F.G.S. 8vo; pp. xviii, 329, with 156 illustrations. 

 London : A. Brown and Sons, Ltd., 5 Farringdon Avenue, 1912. 

 Price 7s. Qd. net. 



rilHE particular portion of the Yorkshire coast described in the work 

 J_ before us is that of Holderness, which extends 35 miles between 

 Bridlington and Spurn Head, and also includes the northern Humber 

 shore westwards to Hull. These two ti'acts of coast, however, exhibit 

 some conditions of a totally different character. Along the open sea- 

 coast the average annual waste of land is 7 feet, or locall)^ from 4 to 

 9 feet ; while on the borders of the Humber, although there is 

 evidence of the Ipss of a number of villages, large tracts of sediment 

 have accumulated during a period of forty-five years, and more than 

 two thousand acres have been reclaimed bj' means of embankments, 

 and are now under cultivation. Indeed, the author remarks that " as 

 years go on the Humber is confined to narrower and narrower 

 channels". 



In the more difficult task of estimating the amount of land which 

 has been lost, the author, who is a keen observer, has made himself 

 familiar with all the physical features and geological formations of 

 the district, and with the processes of destruction of the cliffs. He has, 

 moreover, had the benefit of a number of cliflf-measurements, and of 

 consulting documents, plans, and charts, many of which have not 

 previously been studied in connexion with the waste of the land. He 

 has therefore been able to deal more fully and precisely than others 

 have done with the results of the coast erosion, and his work is 

 profusely illustrated with maps, plans, charts, pictorial views of the 

 coast, reproductions of old engravitigs of lost churches and other 

 buildings, and objects of archseological intei'est. 



A brief and to some extent hardly necessary account is given of 

 the geological formations of the Yorkshire coast, from the Lias to the 

 Chalk and Drifts, as the Drifts alone are of importance in reference 

 to the physical features of Holderness and to the nature of the 

 cliffs. The land, which includes considerable areas below sea-level, 

 is formed in part of Alluvium, but mostly of red or purple Boulder- 

 clay. It is a low-lying hummocky tract of clay and gravel, in which 

 formerly there were many meres, but only that of Hornsea remains. 



The sea-cliffs, 10-50 feet high, are thus formed mainly of clayey 

 matei'ial which is readily eroded, the various subaerial forces acting 

 with the sea in the processes of waste, A view of the cliffs at Kilnsea 

 shows the way in which the sea is assisted in its work of destruction 

 by the drains leading to the cliff-edge and softening the clay. 



Apart from the visible waste, it has been pointed out that much 

 erosion is going on below low-water level, many miles out to sea, 

 and at depths of from 5 to 10 fathoms. It is estimated that since 



