An Excursion to the Crag District. 35 



the deep red stain, due to oxide of iron, which has caused this 

 division of the newer Tertiary to be called <c The Red 

 Crag.-" It overlies the London clay, which here contains 

 traces of decomposed vegetable remains and abundance of 

 gypsum (selenite) in clear crystals, but no shells or animal 

 remains. 



The village stands upon the lowest part of the Naze, and 

 the land rises both to the north and the south. 



The sea constantly encroaches here and has much reduced 

 this little peninsula. There is a breakwater to the north of 

 the pier made of stone, about 500 yards long, on which a 

 terrace is built, and the Coastguard Station-house. Beyond 

 this the only protection afforded to the cliff is by rows of piles 

 driven in pairs into the beach in straight lines, with planks 

 of wood placed between them. These are being rapidly 

 destroyed near low water by the Teredo, and may be crushed 

 beneath the foot. 



Great masses of the blue London clay, which here forms a 

 large proportion of the cliffs, fall from time to time with a 

 heavy thud upon the beach, causing the passer-by to start 

 aside and congratulate himself on his escape. 



At one part of our walk along the footpath on the top of 

 the cliff we came to the corner of an enclosure which abuts so 

 nearly upon the edge of the precipice, that the stile (three feet 

 wide) only remained between it and the fence. Probably by 

 this time the footpath itself is gone. 



The great agents at work in assisting the sea to undermine 

 these cliffs are the land-springs, frosts, and thaws. Springs 

 occur here every few yards, and where a spring is, there the 

 cliff is most unstable. 



At the point where the Crag is seen, an attempt has been 

 made to save the cliff by cutting deep trenches, or gullies, and 

 placing drain pipes and faggots in them to guide the water 

 direct to the beach. A considerable quantity of Crag has thus 

 been thrown out, and where not overgrown with weeds and 

 grass, we found the surface covered with Crag-shells washed 

 out by the rain ; many hundreds were broken, but some still 

 remained perfect. 



I may here state that the Crag is composed almost entirely 

 of shell-remains, interstratified with bands of sand and gravel 

 (see Section), and containing, especially in the Coralline Crag, 

 undisturbed reefs of Bryozoa and shell-banks, buried, and 

 afterwards upheaved, just as they had been formed in the 

 sea. 



The Crag being very friable, it is far easier to discover 

 perfect shells than to extract them from the loose matrix. 

 Even when this has been accomplished, the greatest care is 



