ENCROACHMENTS OF THE SEA. 
^26 
At the present time, the whole line of coast, 
between the embouchure of the Arun, and Ems- 
worth Harbour, is visibly retreating, and the means 
adopted for its prevention liave hitherto been 
attended with but little success.* 
Tlie process by which this destruction of the 
coast is effected, is sufficiently obvious. By the 
incessant action of the waves, the cliffs are under- 
mined, and at length fall down, and cover the shore 
with their ruins. The softer parts of the strata, 
as chalk, marl, clay, &c., are rapidly disintegrated 
and washed away ; while the flints, and more solid 
materials, are broken and rounded by the continual 
agitation of the water, and form those accumulations 
of sand and pebbles that constitute the beach, and 
which serve, in some situations, to protect the land 
from farther encroachments. But when the cliffs 
are entirely composed of soft substances, their de- 
struction is very rapid, unless artificial means be 
employed for their protection ; and even these, in 
many instances, are but too frequently ineffectual, t 
* Dallaway’s Western Sussex, vol. i. p. 55. 
-j- In November, 1824, a violent storm swept over tlie southern 
coast of England ; and its effects on the Sussex shores were in some 
places very considerable. I was at Brighton during the greatest 
violence of the gale, and at the height of the tide ; the waves rolled 
over the towers of the chain pier, and dashed with violence on the 
Steine ; many large masses of the cliffs were thrown down. At 
Seaford, the bank of shingle, the accumulation of centuries, and the 
only bar against the ocean, was swept away, and the town and all the 
adjacent low country inundated: when I visited Seaford, a few days 
afterwards, the road was annihilated, and 1 had to make my way 
over shingle and heaps of sea-weed ; another bank has since gradually 
accumulated. 
