SHORELINE STUDIES AT BOTANY BAY. 171 



next again was the great storm of May 1889, while the 

 storm of July 1912 was far less severe than any of those 

 just mentioned although the waves in the bay were greater 

 during 1912 than they had been since 1889. 



The writer has only a hazy recollection of the storm of 

 1876, being then but five years of age, but, as a youth, he 

 has a vivid recollection of the storm of 1889 and of its 

 effects on the beach. According to the reliable testimony 

 of old residents, the waves, during the 1857 and 1876 storms, 

 sent drenching clouds of spray well inland of the sand dunes, 

 a condition of things which was only reproduced to a slight 

 extent during the great storm of 1889. 



In Plate VII is a representation of the beach to-day near 

 its northern end. Here the cliffs of erosion in the dunes 

 are lower than those towards the southern and central 

 portions of the beach. The terrace of accumulation during 

 1912-1916 may be seen landward of the present beach 

 cusps; above that rises the cliff made in 1912. Above that 

 again is the subhorizontal surface of the sand accumulated 

 since the 1889 storm, while beyond that may be seen the 

 action of erosion by the waves of the 1889 and 1876 storms. 

 The writer has not been able to trace the effect of the 1857 

 storm on the sand dune area, and it is believed by him that 

 it coincides practically with the erosion of the 1876 storm. 



Here then is a striking confirmation of Gilbert's principle 

 of the action of the dominant wave in the formation of the 

 salient forms of the shoreline. 



The Action of the Wind-Another highly interesting and 

 significant point has been brought out by these simple but 

 direct observations. The writer has never seen his way 

 clear to the acceptance of the idea of the formation of 

 peneplains by wind action at high levels in dense masses 

 of heterogeneous rocks, because it has seemed to him that 

 an eroding wind must, like other streams, take account of 



