between Fairleigh and the North Foreland. 219 
erroneous opinion that the tides meet between Dungeness 
Point and Rye Harbour ; but the real cause of these states of 
the tides within the particular limits I have described, seems 
to me to be the very great and sudden contraction of the 
channel between Dungeness and Cape D’Alpree, and the 
South Foreland and Calais Point. In that part it becomes, 
all at once, narrower by more than half of its width to the 
eastward or westward of these points. Dungeness is a long 
narrow point which projects from Winchelsea on the west 
side, and Hythe on the east side, to the extent of nine or ten 
miles, at least, directly into the sea across the channel ; and 
forms two deep bays, one on each side. Opposite to Dunge- 
ness is Cape D’Alpree on the French coast, jutting out also 
into the sea, so as to contract the distance between it and the 
opposite point to about twenty-four miles, and this cape has 
also a large bay on each side, of which Boulogne bay is to 
the eastward. (See the charts.) 
The distance from the South Foreland to Calais is only 
eighteen or nineteen miles, and between these opposite 
shores lie the Ridge, the Varn, the Goodwin, and several 
other shoals on both sides of the channel, all of which serve 
to contract this strait still more. The western tide, therefore, 
coming up the English channel, meets with a resistance to 
its course at Dungeness and Cape D'Alpree, by the very 
sudden contraction of the space between these points ; where, 
from the passage being insufficient to discharge the quantity 
of water brought from the westward, it must necessarily 
accumulate, until it encreases the channel both by deepening 
and widening it, so as to become adequate to the discharge 
of the body of water supplied by the impulse of the tide. 
