8 



CLIFFS FISH. 



Dec. 1826. 



of soft clay, varying in colour and consistence, and disposed in 

 strata running horizontally for many miles without interrup- 

 tion, excepting where water- courses had worn them away. 

 Some of the strata were very fine clay, unmixed with any 

 other substance, whilst others were plentifully strewed with 

 round siliceous gravel,* without any vestige of organic remains. 

 The sea beach, from high-water mark to the base of the cliffs, 

 is formed by shingle, with scattered masses of indurated clay of 

 a green colour.-(- Between the high and low tide marks there is 

 a smooth beach of the same green clay as the masses above-men- 

 tioned, which appears to have been hardened by the action of 

 the surf to the consistence of stone. Generally this beach 

 extends for about one hundred yards farther into the sea, and is 

 succeeded by a soft green mud, over which the water gradually 

 deepens. The outer edge of the clay forms a ledge, extending 

 parallel with the coast, upon the whole length of which the sea 

 breaks, and over it a boat can with difficulty pass at low water. 



The very few shells we found were dead. Strewed about 

 the beach were numbers of fish, some of which had been 

 thrown on shore by the last tide, and were scarcely stiff. 

 They principally belonged to the genus Ophidium ; the 

 largest that we saw measured four feet seven inches in length, 

 and weighed twenty-four pounds. Many caught alongside 

 the ship were, in truth, coarse and insipid ; yet our people, 

 who fed heartily upon them, called them ling, and thought 

 them palatable. The hook, however, furnished us with a 

 very wliolesome and well-flavoured species of cod {Gadus). 

 Attached to the first we found two parasitical animals ; one 

 was a Cymothoa, the other a species of Lerncea^ which had so 



* Some of the specimens of the clay strata consist, according to Dr. 

 Fitton, Avho has kindly examined my collection, of a white marl not 

 unlike certain varieties of the lower chalk ; and of a clay having- many of 

 the properties of I'uller's earth. The pebbles on the beach- consist of 

 quartz, red jasper, hornstone, and flinty slate, but do not contain any 

 stone resembling chalk flint. 



t Dr. Fitton considers these masses of clay to bear a resemblance to 

 the upper green sand of England. 



