134 OLDHAM: SANDHILLS OF CLIFTON NEAR KARACHI. 



approach road was blocked by the advancing sand. The approach to 

 Clifton then came to be by the east approach road and a cross road 

 from it to the north approach road, marked B. B. on the map, but this 

 too became blocked by sand, and in 1900 a new road was made, from 

 the point where the cross road took off, leading direct to Clifton. This 

 road is in no immediate danger of being blocked by sand, but the sand- 

 hills are already within 60 feet of the east road, and will certainly 

 block it if left to themselves. 



Meanwhile there had been an increase of land along the fore- 

 shore off Clifton, and between it and Karachi. A wooden pier, which 

 runs down from the bluff at Clifton to the beach, had originally extended 

 into the sea, but in 1891 it had to be lengthened by 400 feet, the 

 then high-water mark being about 200 feet beyond the original extre- 

 mity of the pier. In the ten years which have elapsed since the 

 making of this extension, the foreshore has again advanced and the 

 whole of the pier is dry at all stages of the tide, the sand has been 

 heaped up till it is everywhere almost level with the plank flooring of 

 the pier, and in places threatens to bury it, while the extreme limit of 

 high tides now lies 50 feet to seaward of the outer end of the length- 

 ened pier. 



From this general account it will be seen that during the last 20 

 vears there has been a steady and continuous accumulation of sand 

 along the foreshore, and from this doubtless has been derived the 

 sand which forms the sandhills behind Clifton. It is not easy to say 

 whether there had been any considerable growth previous to this, but 

 it must be recognised that what has "taken place at Clifton is only part 

 of what is taking place all along this coast ; everywhere the action of 

 waves and currents is smoothing the outline of the coast, in part by 

 wearing away the headlands, but more largely by filling up the indenta- 

 tions and reducing the outline to a series of gently-rounded curves. 

 As sand accumulates along the shore it is picked up by the winds and 

 drifted inland to form sandhills on the land, and everywhere these 

 sandhills'are growing and extending inland. 



The extension of sandhills at Clifton is, thus, only a part of a 

 general phenomenon, not confined to that locality, but there still 

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