268 



Blackburn : Goldfinch on Sledmere Hill. 



at the mouth of the Humber ' six or seven months before.' The 

 chart of Captain Greville ColHns, hydrographer to Charles II. — 

 said to be of 1684— shows the point very much shorter than at 

 present. This was the first serious attempt at accuracy ; I do 

 not know how far it was a success. Pickwell, in 'Transactions 

 of Civil Engineers,' Vol. 51, says that, from his measurements, 

 the Point progressed southward 60 yards between 1864 and 

 1875, 5 "4 y^i'ds per annum. Its alternate growth and 

 destruction seems to be intermittent rather than periodical, but 

 it is often rapid. From all this there seems to be a possibility 

 that, between the destruction of Ravenser Odd and the forma- 

 tion of the present bank of shingle, a new and distinct Spurn 

 Point w^as thrown out and destroyed. This is a question per- 

 haps worth the consideration of engineers familiar with the 

 behaviour of travelling beaches. 



There is another point which arises out of the conclusions of 

 Smeaton and more recent writers that the bulk of the hard 

 debris from the Holderness cliffs is carried along the Lincoln- 

 shire coast as far as the Wash. How does this material get 

 across the deep channel that exists immediately beyond the Point ? 

 Let us suppose a breach to be established near to Kilnsea ; 

 a deep channel will be formed and all the land that may have 

 accumulated where the Sunk Sand and Trinity Sand now exist, 

 and where the ' Lost Towns ' formerly stood w^ill be swept 

 away. Then the new channel will become a main channel and 

 will cut off" the supply of shingle to the rest of the Point ; the 

 current beyond the Point will become weaker and the accumula- 

 tion of shingle will begin to be transferred to the Lincolnshire 

 coast, and in time the old Point will disappear. Meanwhile the 

 new Point will be driving the new channel (with the shingle to 

 the south of it) further outward until it reaches something like 

 its present position, when the process may be again repeated. 



I suppose that during the last century there was some 

 chance that this might happen. In 1820 Hewett's chart shows 

 the neck overflowed at high tides. In 1S49 there was a large 

 breach through the Neck. The construction of groynes has 

 prevented further mischief, but it has deprived this generation 

 of an instructive illustration of tidal action and of ancient history. 



BIRDS. 



Goldfinch on Sledmere HilL — On 25th March 1904 my 

 wife and I saw a pair of Goldfinches, which I believe are rare in 

 the district. — Rev. E. P. Blackburn, Driffield. 



Naturalist, 



