292 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



mark, had then barely the breadth of the highway between 

 them and the sea, which had overthrown the bulwark or 

 fence in front of those buildings, and was then acting on 

 the road itself. Maitland speaks also of a large tract of 

 land on both sides of the port of Leith, which has likewise 

 disappeared. Nor are the inroads of the sea less marked as 

 we continue our westward progress. The old links of New- 

 haven have disappeared. If the calculations of Maitland 

 may be believed, three-fourths of that flat sandy tract were 

 swallowed up in the twent}^two years preceding 1595. 

 Even in the early part of the present century, it was in the 

 recollection of some old fishermen then alive, that there 

 stretched along the shore in front of the grounds of Anchor- 

 field an extensive piece of links on which they used to dry 

 their nets, but which had then been entirely w T ashed away. 

 The direct road between Leith and Newhaven used to pass 

 along the shore to the north of Leith Fort, but it has long 

 been demolished, and for at least fifty years the road has 

 been carried inland by a circuitous route. The waste still 

 goes on, though checked in some degree by the numerous 

 bulwarks and piers which have been erected along the coast. 

 The waves impinge at high tides upon a low cliff* of the stiff 

 blue till or boulder-clay, which readily yields to the com- 

 bined influences of the weather. Hence large slices of the 

 coast-line are from time to time precipitated to the beach. 

 A footpath runs along the top of the bank overhanging the 

 high-water mark, and portions of it are constantly removed 

 on the landslips of clay. By this means, as the ground 

 slopes upwards from the sea, the cliff is always becoming 

 higher with every successive excavation of its sea-front. 

 The risk to foot passengers is thus great ; so many accidents, 

 indeed, have occurred here that the locality is known in the 

 neighbourhood as the ' Man -Trap/ 



" Higher up the Firth of Forth, at the Bay of Barnbougle, 

 a lawn of considerable extent, once intervening between the 

 old castle and the sea, has been demolished. Even in the 

 upper reaches of the estuary, above the narrow strait at the 

 Ferries, the waves have removed a considerable tract of 

 land, which once intervened between the sea and the 



