LANDSLIP AT AXMOUTH. 
175 
long continuance of wet weather in the last autumn, the 
lower region of the fox-mould had become so highly 
saturated with water as to be reduced to semi-fluid quick¬ 
sand. The coast from Axmouth to Lyme Regis presents 
vertical cliffs of chalk about five hundred feet above sea 
level, between which cliffs and the beach a space, varying 
from a quarter to half a mile in extent, is occupied by 
ruinous fallen masses of chalk and sandstone, forming an 
undercliff similar to that in the south coast of the Isle of 
Wight. The landslip at Axmouth began in the night of 
December 24th, 1839, and during the following day slight 
movements of the undercliff were noticed ; a few cracks 
also appeared in the fields above. 
"About midnight of December 25th the inhabitants of 
two cottages in the undercliff were awakened by loud sounds 
produced by the grinding of slowly moving masses of the 
adjacent rocks ; they found the floors of their houses rising 
upwards towards the ceiling, and with difficulty escaped. In 
a few hours one cottage was thrown down. About midnight 
also the two coastguards observed a huge reef of rocks 
gradually rising out of the sea at a short distance from the 
shore ; they moved slowly upward during December 26th, 
until a reef or breakwater was formed half a mile long and 
ranging from ten to forty feet in height, between which 
and the shore was a basin of salt water about five acres 
in extent and in some parts twenty-five feet deep. The 
men who saw the reef rising fled to the top of the cliffs, 
where they soon found the fields on which they trod 
intersected by chasms, from which they made their escape 
with difficulty. Fifty acres were gradually severed from 
the mainland during December 26th. Of these a portion 
subsided about fifty feet below its former level, and the 
rest sank into a tremendous chasm extending three 
quarters of a mile from east to west and varying in breadth 
from two hundred to four hundred feet. Towards the face 
of the new cliff, a portion of the mass presents a most 
picturesque appearance of ruin and confusion, arising from 
the fact of its having broken up into fragments, which 
having sunk to unequal depths and being divided by deep 
