DESCRIPTION OF THE COAST. 
45 
diminution. These observations are of general application. Projecting 
capes and headlands are usually composed of firmly-compacted strata, 
whilst bays and estuaries commonly present less resisting materials. 
Between the north landing-place and a more remarkable bay to the 
west, the prominent cliffs are one hundred and seventeen feet high, and 
mostly composed of chalk ; but at both these bays that stratum sinks 
low, and is covered by a vast accumulation of diluvium. These unsolid 
materials fall and waste away into slopes, which often become covered 
with grass, and afford a dangerous pasture for cattle and sheep. But, on 
the west side of the remarkable bay before alluded to, the diluvium 
is subject to such continual waste, that it appears in the form of bare 
pinnacles resting upon the caverned chalk. 
From the last-mentioned point the chalk cliffs rise rapidly to Danes’ 
dike, which is two hundred and ninety-two feet above high-water, 
then sink again by the summer house, to a point which displays the 
most remarkable contortions of the strata known on this coast. As may 
be seen in the section, the chalk layers are here bent in sigmoidal 
flexures, whilst on each side they are perfectly horizontal. On the 
eastern side this horizontal direction changes to a rising arch, from which 
again the layers descend in long perpendiculars, to join the depressed 
arch which is connected with the horizontal layers on the western 
side. This l’emarkable confusion of declination occupies the whole 
height of the cliff, (two hundred and forty feet,) but its horizontal 
length is small. I could not determine what amount of dislocation is 
occasioned between the horizontal strata which enclose these contor- 
tions ; nor, indeed, whether any such effect is produced. It is scarcely 
possible to conceive how such flexures could be produced, except when 
the strata were soft and yielding ; and it seems reasonable to suppose that 
they are nearly coeval with the deposition of the chalk. As in many 
other instances, the diluvial matter lies without any distinction 01 pecu- 
liarity, upon both the regular and the disturbed strata. 
About a mile further is the highest point of the “ white cliffs and 
here, at an elevation of four hundred and thirty-six feet, a beacon, I 
