130 



THE BRITISH ISLES. 



on the Straits of Dover which are exposed to this waste, and Shakspere's Cliff, since 

 the day Julius Cœsar set his foot upon the shore of England, is supposed to have 

 receded no less than a niilo and a half.* Old chronicles tell us of fearful landslips, 

 which shook the town of Dover, and caused the country for miles around it to 

 vibrate. A railway tunnel passes through one of these cliffs, and it was found 

 advisable to secure the cliff from further encroachments by precipitating its summit 

 into the sea, so as to form a kind of breakwater. By the blasting operations carried 

 on with this view, a huge mass of rock, of a presumed weight of a million tons, was 



Fig. 72. — RoMNEY Marsh. 

 Scale 1 : 350..5no. 



- 5 Miles. 



detached, and, falling into the sea, formed a bank with an area of about 20 acres, 

 upon which the waves now spend their force. 



But whilst the sea is busily demolishing the cliffs of Dover and Hastings, it 

 has gradually silted up the intervening level tract. The triangular plain thus 

 formed juts out beyond the general line of the coast, and terminates in Dungeness. 

 Xowhere else is it possible to meet with a more striking illustration of the influence 

 which the strength and direction of the tides exercise upon the formation of a 

 coast-line. This Eomney level, named after a town in its centre, would never 

 have been formed if the English Channel and the North Sea were not placed in 

 * Beele Jukes, " School Manual of Geology." 



