Ch. XX.] 



ON SOUTH COAST OF ENGLAND. 



533 



to remove the coast-road farther inland. The tradition, 



Hordwell 



once in the middle of that parish, although now (1830) very 



near the sea. 



Head 



way slowly. It is the only point between Lymington and 

 Poole Harbonr, in Dorsetshire, where any hard stony masses 

 occur in the cliffs. Five layers of large ferruginous concre- 

 tions, somewhat like the septaria of the London clay, have 

 occasioned a resistance at this point, to which we may 

 ascribe this headland. In the meantime, the waves have cut 

 deeply into the soft sands and loam of Poole Bay ; and after 

 severe frosts, great landslips take place, which by degrees 

 become enlarged into narrow ravines, or chines, as they 

 called, with vertical sides. One of these chines, near Bos- 

 comb, has been deepened twenty feet within a few years 

 (1830). At the head of each there is a spring, the waters of 

 which have been chiefly instrumental in producing these 



are 



sometimes 



feet deep. 



Isle of Portland.— The peninsulas of Purbeck and Portland 



are continually wasting away. In the latter, the soft argil- 

 laceous substratum (Kimmeridge clay) hastens the dilapida- 



mass 



In 1665 the cliffs adjoining the principal quarries in Port- 

 land gave way to the extent of one hundred yards, and fell 

 into the sea ; and in December 1734, a slide to the extent^ of 

 150 yards occurred on the east side of the isle, by which 

 several skeletons, buried between slabs of stone, were dis- 



covered. 



much more memorable 



nature, in 1792, occasioned probably by the undermining of 



. — a * HTT • I — _L \ <-» ^%r>* AT 



Hutchin's History 



shire : 



< Early in the morning the road was observed to 



crack : this continued increasing, and before two o'clock the 

 ground had sunk several feet, and was in one continued 

 motion, but attended with no other noise than what was occa- 



bramble 



seemed 



and then a falling rock. At night ii 



but soon moved again ; and, before mc — oy 



the top of the cliff to the water-side had sunk in some places 



from 



