486 TOPOGRAPHY AND VEGETATION OF BLAKENEY POINT. 
entrusted to a special “ floristic section,” under the leadership 
of Dr. E. J. Salisbury, and it is largely the preliminary state- 
ment of the results obtained by this section which forms the 
subject matter of the present communication. This statement 
is for convenience preceded by a general introductory account 
of what is topographically important in the area as a whole, 
with especial reference to the distinctive characters of the 
various types of habitat into which the ground naturally falls. 
F. W. O. 
Part I.— TOPOGRAPHY. 
By Professor F. W. Oliver. 
General Features. 
Blakeney Point is technically a shingle spit , a type of 
construction of which numerous examples occur on the English 
coasts. It leaves the shore at a point on the North coast of 
Norfolk, near Weybourne, and runs for a distance of about eight 
miles in a direction slightly North of West. The extremity 
ends freely in the sea, just short of Stiffkey, at a distance of 
about one and a-half miles from the shore. On its landward 
side is a long, narrow, tidal inlet, known as Blakeney Harbour, 
which receives at Cley the waters of the River Glaven. This 
estuary has become much silted up, and bears a covering of 
salt marsh intersected by creeks and channels, now navigable 
only at high tide by fishing boats and other vessels of small 
tonnage. The salt marshes of the upper part of the estuary 
have been reclaimed for pasture by the construction of banks 
reaching above tidal limits. 
The total area within the spit, including the marshes, is about 
five square miles, of which rather more than one and a-half 
square miles consist of reclaimed, and two square miles of un- 
reclaimed, salt marshes (“ saltings ”) ; the remainder consists 
of bare mud. 
The dominating topographical feature is the shingle spit, 
which follows the edge of the shallow coastal shelf and delimits 
the seaward side of Blakeney Harbour. Along its course, to 
