FORMATION OF A LINCOLNSHIRE NATURALISTS’ UNION. 255 
A low flat sea-shore like that of Mablethorpe, with its unrivalled 
stretch of sands, is always a matter of interest to the geologist, as, 
from it can be traced the origin of many similar strata in past ages. 
The ripple marks and water runnels in the sands have their counter- 
parts in the Yorkshire flagstones, the thin shales of the Keuper, and 
other deposits of a like nature; and the way in which these are 
produced can only be arrived at, and verified, by the study of 
similar actions at the present time. 
In some places, particularly near the mud-flats of Saltfleet, on 
turning up the soil, numerous well-defined laminations of alternate 
sand and mud were met with. These are caused by the occasional 
overflowing of the sea, charged with mud and silt, forming a layer, 
which is again covered over by the blown up sand ; while, in other 
places, the difficulties in pronouncing strata to be of marine or 
terrestrial origin, were well exemplified in the fact of finding some 
Three-spined Sticklebacks (Gasterosteus Spinulosus), which are fond of 
brackish water, lying dead in the dried-up channels and mud-holes, 
mixed up with crabs, zoophytes, ray’s egg-cases, land, freshwater, 
and marine shells, and countless thousands of the little shore-loving 
mollusc (Assiminea grayana), which abounds on the fitties at Clee- 
Orpes, and is met with generally in the salt-marshes of our eastern 
coasts. 
And now a word about the high banks of sand running 
all along the coast, and the mode of their formation. These 
banks, begun by the hand of man and increased by the action 
of the wind, present a feature which adds much to the quiet 
Stay beauty of the scenery. The way in which this increase is 
effected may be seen any day when a strong wind is blowing towards 
the land. At such times the dry sand is in motion, and rushes in 
Clouds, with a stinging effect, towards the barrier, helping to pile it 
up, and covering in its course every pebble, waif, and shell; each 
_ Obstacle with its long drawn talus of sand aney from the wind’s 
direction— 
Aided old eo ol 
. The sea, as is often erroneously thought, has had, and can have, 
no hand in this. The sea is always a leveller, and if the tides were | 
high enough, and strong enough, it would sweep away the refuge of — 
__ Sand by undermining its base—but the bank here has become so a 
matted and protected by the Sea Buck-Thorn (Hippophaé rham- 
_noides), the Sea Maram (Psamma arenaria) with its fine glaucous 
foliage, Elymus arenarius—the Icelanders’ substitute for corn—and 
_ Other grasses ; till, aided by the continued robe up of the sand, 
he bank ol sO 
; oe : oe 
ey vpeconic well-nigh, it not - . ures) 
