GEOLOGY AND SUEFACB FEATURES. 



13 



dangerous by shoals and sand-banks. Marshes and shelving beaches are frequent 

 along it, and the cliffs being for the most part composed of chalk, clay, or sand, 

 and unable to resist the assaults of the ocean, crumble away. In many places thé 

 sea gains upon the land rapidly. 



Very different are the features of the western coast. Its contour exhibits far 

 greater variety. In Scotland more especially it is indented by numerous sea 

 lochs, bounded by bold mountains, reminding us of the fiords of Norway. Whilst 

 along the whole of the eastern coast there is but one island of any note, the western 

 coast of Scotland is skirted by the double chain of the Hebrides, the Isle of Man 

 occupies the centre of the Irish Sea, and Anglesey lies off the coast of Wales. 

 There are not wanting low sandy shores and tracts of marshy land, but bold cliffs 



Fig. 7. — The Stack Rocks, South Wales. 



form its characteristic feature. Being composed of solid rocks, these headlands are 

 better able to resist the wasting action of the sea than are the soft cliffs along the 

 east coast. Yet that waste, however slow, is going on here also is proved by 

 the detached masses of rock known as " Needles " or " Stacks," which stand apart 

 from the cliffs from which they have been severed by the erosive action of the 

 tides and waves. 



The south-east coast of England resembles the east, but the western rises into 

 bold cliffs of old red sandstone and granite. It is deficient in natural harbours, 

 and cliffs of chalk alternate with stretches of marsh and fiat tracts of clay ; but 

 immediately to the west of Selsey Bill the safe roadstead of Spithead opens out 

 between the mainland and the Isle of Wight, communicating with the spacious 

 harbour of Portsmouth and the well-sheltered estuary leading up to Southampton. 



