l8 YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS UNION. 



It is recommended that the following be elected during- 

 1904:— 



Chairman — P. F. Kendall, F.G.S. 



Convener — A. Stather. 



Representative on Executive — Rev. W. Lower Carter, F.G.S. 



Representative on Committee of Suggestions — Godfrey 



Bingley, F.G.S. 

 Other Members— J. J. Burton, H. H. Corbett. 



Coast Erosion Committee. — Mr. F. F. Walton 



reports: — The year 1903 has been characterised by the great 

 activity of the coast erosion. The persistent rainfall has un- 

 doubtedly contributed not a little to this result. The amount of 

 water running over the edge of the boulder clay cliffs has had an 

 appreciable effect in softening and dislodging large masses of 

 clay that in drier seasons would have stood for some time 

 without movement. The water as it runs down the cliffs be- 

 comes mixed with the softened clay and, at the lower part of the 

 cliffs, becomes transformed into regular mud streams, which 

 spread out on the sand and are cleared away by the next tide 

 that reaches the cliffs. The writer has observed many such 

 mud streams during the summer and autumn of this year ; and 

 it is certain that this factor of the water fiowing down the face of 

 the cliffs is a very important one in considering the erosion which 

 is taking place so rapidly on the Holderness coast. 



The influence of the surface field drains in contributing a 

 large proportion of the water thus running down the cliffs is 

 very considerable. Wherever these drains are exposed on the 

 cliffs, and this occurs every few yards along nearly all the length 

 of the coast, a deep gully is formed down which a stream of 

 water flows ; these gullies gradually form little bays in the line 

 of the cliff. The intermediate headlands then crack across near 

 the base and become broken up and disintegrated ; and so the 

 process goes on. No system of protection of the coast can be 

 complete unless the water draining down the cliffs is gathered 

 together and conveyed down to the shore in such a manner that 

 no erosive action, from this cause, can take place. 



The waste of the cliffs in the neighbourhood of Hornsea has 

 been very great. The footpath along the top of the cliffs towards 

 the north, which had been in existence for several years, has 

 during this year almost entirely disappeared, and a new one 

 further from the edge of the cliff has consequently been sub- 

 stituted. As an example of the large falls that have taken place,, 

 one may be mentioned which was measur-ed by Mr. Crofts and 

 myself in August. This was situated in the field to the south 



