292 Proceedings of the Eoyal 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 buildiDgs, 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 twenty-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 washed 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 clifi' of the stifi:' 
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 becommg 
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, i 
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 
