104 COLE: EROSION OF THE YORKSHIRE COAST. 
Such being the case, we are not surprised to find that the 
greatest ravages on the Yorkshire coast are precisely in those localities 
where the cliffs are composed of boulder clay. The sea, in fact, is 
regaining its own, for boulder clay is an intruder; it has no business 
here, defiling and disfiguring all the lovely bays and arms of the sea 
which used to exist in the boyhood of our race, before the great 
Scandinavian ice-giant came, heaping up his dirty moraine in ever 
eastern nook and corner he could find. But to come to particulars. 
Take the coast-line from Sewerby to Spurn. It is retreating slowly 
westwards before the slow but persistent attacks of denudation. 
Holderness is simply a mass of boulder clay,and drift, filling up an 
ancient bay, whose shores once extended from Sewerby round by 
Kilham, Craike Hill, Middleton, and Beverley, to the wolds of 
Lincolnshire. The sea is re-asserting its rights, at pu toa we 
have a gauge by which to measure the rate of progre 
In the year 1786, Polson, writing his valuable foes of Holder- 
ness, recorded the distance of certain churches from the edge of the 
cliff. It is to be presumed that he measured from the east end of 
the chancel in the nearest straight line to the cliff top. Captain 
Kenney, R.E., of the new Ordnance Survey, has kindly forwarded 
the exact distance of the same taken in 1889. From these reports 
the following table has hee constructed :— 
nee from “i seo Total loss in Aver. per 
786. 103 Years. annum, 
t . Feet, Ft. In. 
Hornsea Church ......... 31400 ine pst ee JOR ge 4 CAG 
Aldborougn Church... 68a... 50 a, a OO Oe 
Tunstall Church ......... 2;772 2,075 697 6 9 
45 4 
Hence it is evident that erosion varies on diferent parts of the coast, 
probably owing to the temporary formation of sand-banks and 
deflection of currents. This is corroborated by a remarkable instance 
in the case of Auburn House, communicated by Mr. T. Boynton, 
late of Ulrome. ‘Some 30 years ago part of this house was removed 
by the sea; none has gone since, a sand-bank having formed above 
high-water level.’ An extract from the register belonging to the 
parish of Atwick, kindly contributed by the Rev. E. Gordon, Vicar, 
tends to the same conclusion. For nine years previous to the year 
1795, the average loss of the cliff was 10 ft. 4in. perannum. In 1795 
the distance of Atwick Cross from the cliff top was 2,856 ft. In 1871 
it was 2,508 ft., an actual loss in 76 years of 375 ft., or an average of 
only 4 ft. 8 in. per annum. During the past year the hon secretary 
has taken several measurements at different points on the coast, 
which will be placed on permanent record with the Y.N.U., viz.:— 
Bempton Cliff, above Scale Nab; Sarnwick, near Thornwick Bay; 
_—_——— 
Naturalist, 
