Principles of Geology Part 23

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 27.

Stony fragments drifted by the sea. Northmavine, Shetland.]

When we thus see electricity co-operating with the violent movements of the ocean in heaping up piles of shattered rocks on dry land and beneath the waters, we cannot but admit that a region which shall be the theatre, for myriads of ages, of the action of such disturbing causes, might present, at some future period, if upraised far above the bosom of the deep, a scene of havoc and ruin that may compare with any now found by the geologist on the surface of our continents.

In some of the Shetland Isles, as on the west of Meikle Roe, dikes, or veins of soft granite, have mouldered away; while the matrix in which they were inclosed, being of the same substance, but of a firmer texture, has remained unaltered. Thus, long narrow ravines, sometimes twenty feet wide, are laid open, and often give access to the waves.

After describing some huge cavernous apertures into which the sea flows for 250 feet in Roeness, Dr. Hibbert, writing in 1822, enumerates other ravages of the ocean. "A ma.s.s of rock, the average dimensions of which may perhaps be rated at twelve or thirteen feet square, and four and a half or five in thickness, was first moved from its bed, about fifty years ago, to a distance of thirty feet, and has since been twice turned over."

_Pa.s.sage forced by the sea through porphyritic rocks._--"But the most sublime scene is where a mural pile of porphyry, escaping the process of disintegration that is devastating the coast, appears to have been left as a sort of rampart against the inroads of the ocean;--the Atlantic, when provoked by wintry gales, batters against it with all the force of real artillery--the waves having, in their repeated a.s.saults, forced themselves an entrance. This breach, named the Grind of the Navir (fig. 28), is widened every winter by the overwhelming surge that, finding a pa.s.sage through it, separates large stones from its sides, and forces them to a distance of no less than 180 feet. In two or three spots, the fragments which have been detached are brought together in immense heaps, that appear as an acc.u.mulation of cubical ma.s.ses, the product of some quarry."[393]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 28.

Grind of the Navir--pa.s.sage forced by the sea through rocks of hard porphyry.]

It is evident from this example, that although the greater indestructibility of some rocks may enable them to withstand, for a longer time, the action of the elements, yet they cannot permanently resist. There are localities in Shetland, in which rocks of almost every variety of mineral composition are suffering disintegration; thus the sea makes great inroads on the clay slate of Fitfel Head, on the serpentine of the Vord Hill in Fetlar, and on the mica-schist of the Bay of Triesta, on the east coast of the same island, which decomposes into angular blocks. The quartz rock on the east of Walls, and the gneiss and mica-schist of Garthness, suffer the same fate.

_Destruction of islands._--Such devastation cannot be incessantly committed for thousands of years without dividing islands, until they become at last mere cl.u.s.ters of rocks, the last shreds of ma.s.ses once continuous. To this state many appear to have been reduced, and innumerable fantastic forms are a.s.sumed by rocks adjoining these islands to which the name of Drongs is applied, as it is to those of similar shape in Feroe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 29.

Granitic rocks named the Drongs, between Papa Stour and Hillswick Ness.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 30.

Granitic rocks to the south of Hillswick Ness, Shetland.]

The granite rocks (fig. 29), between Papa Stour and Hillswick Ness afford an example. A still more singular cl.u.s.ter of rocks is seen to the south of Hillswick Ness (fig. 30), which presents a variety of forms as viewed from different points, and has often been likened to a small fleet of vessels with spread sails.[394] We may imagine that in the course of time Hillswick Ness itself may present a similar wreck, from the unequal decomposition of the rocks whereof it is composed, consisting of gneiss and mica-schist traversed in all directions by veins of felspar-porphyry.

Midway between the groups of Shetland and Orkney is Fair Island, said to be composed of sandstone with high perpendicular cliffs. The current runs with such velocity, that during a calm, and when there is no swell, the rocks on its sh.o.r.es are white with the foam of the sea driven against them. The Orkneys, if carefully examined, would probably ill.u.s.trate our present topic as much as the Shetland group. The northeast promontory of Sanda, one of these islands, has been cut off in modern times by the sea, so that it became what is now called Start Island, where a lighthouse was erected in 1807, since which time the new strait has grown broader.

_East coast of Scotland._--To pa.s.s over to the main land of Scotland, we find that in Inverness-shire there have been inroads of the sea at Fort George, and others in Morayshire, which have swept away the old town of Findhorn. On the coast of Kincardineshire, an ill.u.s.tration was afforded at the close of the last century, of the effect of promontories in protecting a line of low sh.o.r.e. The village of Mathers, two miles south of Johnshaven, was built on an ancient shingle beach, protected by a projecting ledge of limestone rock. This was quarried for lime to such an extent that the sea broke through, and in 1795 carried away the whole village in one night, and penetrated 150 yards inland, where it has maintained its ground ever since, the new village having been built farther inland on the new sh.o.r.e. In the bay of Montrose, we find the North Esk and the South Esk rivers pouring annually into the sea large quant.i.ties of sand and pebbles; yet they have formed no deltas, for the waves, aided by the current, setting across their mouths, sweep away all the materials. Considerable beds of shingle, brought down by the North Esk, are seen along the beach.

Proceeding southwards, we learn that at Arbroath, in Forfarshire, which stands on a rock of red sandstone, gardens and houses have been carried away since the commencement of the present century by encroachments of the sea. It had become necessary before 1828, to remove the lighthouses at the mouth of the estuary of the Tay, in the same county, at b.u.t.ton Ness, which were built on a tract of blown sand, the sea having encroached for three-quarters of a mile.

_Force of waves and currents in estuaries._--The combined power which waves and currents can exert in _estuaries_ (a term which I confine to bays entered both by rivers and the tides of the sea), was remarkably exhibited during the building of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, off the mouth of the Tay. The Bell Rock is a sunken reef, consisting of red sandstone, being from twelve to sixteen feet under the surface at high water, and about twelve miles from the mainland. At the distance of 100 yards, there is a depth, in all directions of two or three fathoms at low water. In 1807, during the erection of the lighthouse, six large blocks of granite, which had been landed on the reef, were removed by the force of the sea, and thrown over a rising ledge to the distance of twelve or fifteen paces; and an anchor, weighing about 22 cwt., was thrown up upon the rock.[395] Mr. Stevenson informs us moreover, that drift stones, measuring upwards of thirty cubic feet, or more than two tons' weight, have, during storms, been often thrown upon the rock from the deep water.[396]

_Submarine forests._--Among the proofs that the sea has encroached on the land bordering the estuary of the Tay, Dr. Fleming has mentioned a submarine forest which has been traced for several miles along the northern sh.o.r.e of the county of Fife.[397] But subsequent surveys seem to have shown that the bed of peat containing tree-roots, leaves, and branches, now occurring at a lower level than the Tay, must have come into its present position by a general sinking of the ground on which the forest grew. The peat-bed alluded to is not confined, says Mr.

Buist, to the present channel of the Tay, but extends far beyond it, and is covered by stratified clay from fifteen to twenty-five feet in thickness, in the midst of which, in some places, is a bed full of sea-sh.e.l.ls.[398] Recent discoveries having established the fact that upward and downward movements have affected our island since the general coast-line had nearly acquired its present shape, we must hesitate before we attribute any given change to a single cause, such as the local encroachment of the sea upon low land.

On the coast of Fife, at St. Andrew's, a tract of land, said to have intervened between the castle of Cardinal Beaton and the sea, has been entirely swept away, as were the last remains of the Priory of Crail, in the same county, in 1803. On both sides of the Frith of Forth, land has been consumed; at North Berwick in particular, and at Newhaven, where an a.r.s.enal and dock, built in the reign of James IV., in the fifteenth century, has been overflowed.

_East coast of England._--If we now proceed to the English coast, we find records of numerous lands having been destroyed in Northumberland, as those near Bamborough and Holy Island, and at Tynemouth Castle, which now overhangs the sea, although formerly separated from it by a strip of land. At Hartlepool, and several other parts of the coast of Durham composed of magnesian limestone, the sea has made considerable inroads.

_Coast of Yorkshire._--Almost the whole coast of Yorkshire, from the mouth of the Tees to that of the Humber, is in a state of gradual dilapidation. That part of the cliffs which consist of lias, the oolite series, and chalk, decays slowly. They present abrupt and naked precipices, often 300 feet in height; and it is only at a few points that the gra.s.sy covering of the sloping talus marks a temporary relaxation of the erosive action of the sea. The chalk cliffs are worn into caves and needles in the projecting headland of Flamborough, where they are decomposed by the salt spray, and slowly crumble away. But the waste is most rapid between that promontory and Spurn Point, or the coast of Holderness, as it is called, a tract consisting of beds of clay, gravel, sand, and chalk rubble. The irregular intermixture of the argillaceous beds causes many springs to be thrown out, and this facilitates the undermining process, the waves beating against them, and a strong current setting chiefly from the north. The wasteful action is very conspicuous at Dimlington Height, the loftiest point in Holderness, where the beacon stands on a cliff 146 feet above high water, the whole being composed of clay, with pebbles scattered through it.[399] "For many years," says Professor Phillips, "the rate at which the cliffs recede from Bridlington to Spurn, a distance of thirty-six miles, has been found by measurement to equal on an average two and a quarter yards annually, which, upon thirty-six miles of coast, would amount to about thirty acres a year. At this rate, the coast, the mean height of which above the sea is about forty feet, has lost one mile in breadth since the Norman Conquest, and more than two miles since the occupation of York (Eborac.u.m) by the Romans."[400] The extent of this denudation, as estimated by the number of cubic feet of matter removed annually, will be again spoken of in chapter 22.

In the old maps of Yorkshire, we find spots, now sand-banks in the sea, marked as the ancient sites of the towns and villages of Auburn, Hartburn, and Hyde. "Of Hyde," says Pennant, "only the tradition is left; and near the village of Hornsea, a street called Hornsea Beck has long since been swallowed."[401] Owthorne and its church have also been in great part destroyed, and the village of Kilnsea; but these places are now removed farther inland. The annual rate of encroachment at Owthorne for several years preceding 1830, is stated to have averaged about four yards. Not unreasonable fears are entertained that at some future time the Spurn Point will become an island, and that the ocean, entering into the estuary of the Humber, will cause great devastation.[402] Pennant, after speaking of the silting up of some ancient ports in that estuary, observes, "But, in return, the sea has made most ample reprisals; the site, and even the very names of several places, once towns of note upon the Humber, are now only recorded in history; and Ravensper was at one time a rival to Hull (Madox, Ant.

Exch. i. 422), and a port so very considerable in 1332, that Edward Baliol and the confederated English barons sailed from hence to invade Scotland; and Henry IV., in 1399, made choice of this port to land at, to effect the deposal of Richard II.; yet the whole of this has long since been devoured by the merciless ocean; extensive sands, dry at low water, are to be seen in their stead."[403]

Pennant describes Spurn Head as a promontory in the form of a sickle, and says the land, for some miles to the north, was "perpetually preyed on by the fury of the German Sea, which devours whole acres at a time, and exposes on the sh.o.r.es considerable quant.i.ties of beautiful amber."

_Lincolnshire._--The maritime district of Lincolnshire consists chiefly of lands that lie below the level of the sea, being protected by embankments. Some of the fens were embanked and drained by the Romans; but after their departure the sea returned, and large tracts were covered with beds of silt, containing marine sh.e.l.ls, now again converted into productive lands. Many dreadful catastrophes are recorded by incursions of the sea, whereby several parishes have been at different times overwhelmed.

_Norfolk._--The decay of the cliffs of Norfolk and Suffolk is incessant.

At Hunstanton, on the north, the undermining of the lower arenaceous beds at the foot of the cliff, causes ma.s.ses of red and white chalk to be precipitated from above. Between Hunstanton and Weybourne, low hills, or dunes, of blown sand, are formed along the sh.o.r.e, from fifty to sixty feet high. They are composed of dry sand, bound in a compact ma.s.s by the long creeping roots of the plant called Marram (_Arundo arenaria_). Such is the present set of the tides, that the harbors of Clay, Wells, and other places are securely defended by these barriers; affording a clear proof that it is not the strength of the material at particular points that determines whether the sea shall be progressive or stationary, but the general contour of the coast.

The waves constantly undermine the low chalk cliffs, covered with sand and clay, between Weybourne and Sherringham, a certain portion of them being annually removed. At the latter town I ascertained, in 1829, some facts which throw light on the rate at which the sea gains upon the land. It was computed, when the present inn was built, in 1805, that it would require seventy years for the sea to reach the spot: the mean loss of land being calculated, from previous observations, to be somewhat less than one yard, annually. The distance between the house and the sea was fifty yards; but no allowance was made for the slope of the ground being _from_ the sea, in consequence of which the waste was naturally accelerated every year, as the cliff grew lower, there being at each succeeding period less matter to remove when portions of equal area fell down. Between the years 1824 and 1829, no less than seventeen yards were swept away, and only a small garden was then left between the building and the sea. There was, in 1829, a depth of twenty feet (sufficient to float a frigate) at one point in the harbor of that port, where, only forty-eight years before, there stood a cliff fifty feet high, with houses upon it! If once in half a century an equal amount of change were produced suddenly by the momentary shock of an earthquake, history would be filled with records of such wonderful revolutions of the earth's surface; but, if the conversion of high land into deep sea be gradual, it excites only local attention. The flagstaff of the Preventive Service station, on the south side of this harbor, was thrice removed inland between the years 1814 and 1829, in consequence of the advance of the sea.

Farther to the south we find cliffs, composed, like those of Holderness before mentioned, of alternating strata of blue clay, gravel, loam, and fine sand. Although they sometimes exceed 300 feet in height, the havoc made on the coast is most formidable. The whole site of ancient Cromer now forms part of the German Ocean, the inhabitants having gradually retreated inland to their present situation, from whence the sea still threatens to dislodge them. In the winter of 1825, a fallen ma.s.s was precipitated from near the lighthouse, which covered twelve acres, extending far into the sea, the cliffs being 250 feet in height.[404]

The undermining by springs has sometimes caused large portions of the upper part of the cliffs, with houses still standing upon them, to give way, so that it is impossible, by erecting breakwaters at the base of the cliffs, permanently to ward off the danger.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 31.

Tower of the buried Church of Eccles, Norfolk, A. D. 1839.

The inland slope of the hills of blown sand is shown in this view, with the lighthouse of Hasborough in the distance.]

On the same coast, says Mr. R. C. Taylor, the ancient villages of Shipden, Wimpwell, and Eccles have disappeared; several manors and large portions of neighboring parishes having, piece after piece, been swallowed up; nor has there been any intermission, from time immemorial, in the ravages of the sea along a line of coast twenty miles in length, in which these places stood.[405] Of Eccles, however, a monument still remains in the rained tower of the old church, which is half buried in the dunes of sand within a few paces (60?) of the sea-beach (fig. 31).

So early as 1605 the inhabitants pet.i.tioned James I. for a reduction of taxes, as 300 acres of land, and all their houses, save fourteen, had then been destroyed by the sea. Not one half that number of acres now remains in the parish, and hills of blown sand now occupy the site of the houses which were still extant in 1605. When I visited the spot in 1839, the sea was fast encroaching on the sand-hills, and had laid open on the beach the foundations of a house fourteen yards square, the upper part of which had evidently been pulled down before it had been buried under sand. The body of the church has also been long buried, but the tower still remains visible.

M. E. de Beaumont has suggested that sand-dunes in Holland and other countries may serve as natural chronometers, by which the date of the existing continents may be ascertained. The sands, he says, are continually blown inland by the force of the winds, and by observing the rate of their march we may calculate the period when the movement commenced.[406] But the example just given will satisfy every geologist that we cannot ascertain the starting-point of dunes, all coasts being liable to waste, and the sh.o.r.es of the Low Countries in particular, being not only exposed to inroads of the sea, but, as M. de Beaumont himself has well shown, having even in historical times undergone a change of level. The dunes may indeed, in some cases, be made use of as chronometers, to enable us to a.s.sign a minimum of antiquity to existing coast-lines; but this test must be applied with great caution, so variable is the rate at which the sands may advance into the interior.

Hills of blown sand, between Eccles and Winterton, have barred up and excluded the tide for many hundred years from the mouths of several small estuaries; but there are records of nine breaches, from 20 to 120 yards wide, having been made through these, by which immense damage was done to the low grounds in the interior. A few miles south of Happisburgh, also, are hills of blown sand, which extend to Yarmouth.

These _dunes_ afford a temporary protection to the coast, and an inland cliff, about a mile long, at Winterton, shows clearly that at that point the sea must have penetrated formerly farther than at present.

_Silting up of estuaries/_--At Yarmouth, the sea has not advanced upon the sands in the slightest degree since the reign of Elizabeth. In the time of the Saxons, a great estuary extended as far as Norwich, which city, is represented; even in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as "situated on the banks of an arm of the sea." The sands whereon Yarmouth is built, first became firm and habitable ground about the year 1008, from which time a line of dunes has gradually increased in height and breadth, stretching across the whole entrance of the ancient estuary, and obstructing the ingress of the tides so completely, that they are only admitted by the narrow pa.s.sage which the river keeps open, and which has gradually shifted several miles to the south. The ordinary tides at the river's mouth rise, at present, only to the height, of three or four feet, the spring tides to about eight or nine.

By the exclusion of the sea, thousands of acres in the interior have become cultivated lands; and, exclusive of smaller pools, upwards of sixty freshwater lakes have been formed, varying in depth from fifteen to thirty feet, and in extent from one acre to twelve hundred.[407] The Yare, and other rivers, frequently communicate with these sheets of water; and thus they are liable to be filled up gradually with lacustrine and fluviatile deposits, and to be converted into land covered with forests. Yet it must not be imagined, that the acquisition of new land fit for cultivation in Norfolk and Suffolk indicates any permanent growth of the eastern limits of our island to compensate its reiterated losses. No _delta_ can form on such a sh.o.r.e.

Immediately off Yarmouth, and parallel to the sh.o.r.e, is a great range of sand-banks, the shape of which varies slowly from year to year, and often suddenly after great storms. Captain Hewitt, R. N., found in these banks, in 1836, a broad channel sixty-five feet deep, where there was only a depth of four feet during a prior survey in 1822. The sea had excavated to the depth of sixty feet in the course of fourteen years, or perhaps a shorter period. The new channel thus formed serves at present (1838), for the entrance of ships into Yarmouth Roads; and the magnitude of this change shows how easily a new set of the waves and currents might endanger the submergence of the land gained within the ancient estuary of the Yare.

That great banks should be thrown across the mouths of estuaries on our eastern coast, where there is not a large body of river-water to maintain an open channel, is perfectly intelligible, when we bear in mind that the marine current, sweeping along the coast, is charged with the materials of wasting cliffs, and ready to form a bar anywhere the instant its course is interrupted or checked by any opposing stream. The mouth of the Yare has been, within the last five centuries, diverted about four miles to the south. In like manner it is evident that, at some remote period, the river Alde entered the sea at Aldborough, until its ancient outlet was barred up and at length transferred to a point no less than ten miles distant to the southwest. In this case, ridges of sand and shingle, like those of Lowestoff Ness, which will be described by and by, have been thrown up between the river and the sea; and an ancient sea-cliff is to be seen now inland.

It may be asked why the rivers on our east coast are always deflected southwards, although the tidal current flows alternately from the south and north? The cause is to be found in the superior force of what is commonly called "the flood tide from the north," a tidal wave derived from the Atlantic, a small part of which pa.s.ses eastward up the English Channel, and through the Straits of Dover and then northwards, while the princ.i.p.al body of water, moving much more rapidly in a more open sea, on the western side of Britain, first pa.s.ses the Orkneys, and then turning, flows down between Norway and Scotland, and sweeps with great velocity along our eastern coast. It is well known that the highest tides on this coast are occasioned by a powerful northwest wind, which raises the eastern part of the Atlantic, and causes it to pour a greater volume of water into the German Ocean. This circ.u.mstance of a violent _off-sh.o.r.e_ wind being attended with a rise of the waters, instead of a general retreat of the sea, naturally excites the wonder of the inhabitants of our coast. In many districts they look with confidence for a rich harvest of that valuable manure, the sea-weed, when the north-westerly gales prevail, and are rarely disappointed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 32.

Map of Lowestoff Ness, Suffolk.[408]

_a_, _a_. The dotted lines express a series of sand and shingle, forming the extremity of the triangular s.p.a.ce called the Ness.

_b_, _b_, _b_. The dark line represents the inland cliff on which the town of Lowestoff stands, between which and the sea is the Ness.]

_Coast of Suffolk._--The cliffs of Suffolk, to which we next proceed, are somewhat less elevated than those of Norfolk, but composed of similar alternations of clay, sand, and gravel. From Gorleston in Suffolk, to within a few miles north of Lowestoff, the cliffs are slowly undermined. Near the last-mentioned town, there is an inland cliff about sixty feet high, the sloping talus of which is covered with turf and heath. Between the cliff and the sea is a low flat tract of sand called the Ness, nearly three miles long, and for the most part out of reach of the highest tides. The point of the Ness projects from the base of the original cliff to the distance of 660 yards. This accession of land, says Mr. Taylor, has been effected at distinct and distant intervals, by the influence of currents running between the land and a shoal about a mile off Lowestoff, called the Holm Sand. The lines of growth in the Ness are indicated by a series of concentric ridges or embankments inclosing limited areas, and several of these ridges have been formed within the observation of persons now living. A rampart of heavy materials is first thrown up to an unusual alt.i.tude by some extraordinary tide, attended with a violent gale. Subsequent tides extend the base of this high bank of shingle, and the interstices are then filled with sand blown from the beach. The Arundo and other marine plants by degrees obtain a footing; and creeping along the ridge, give solidity to the ma.s.s, and form in some cases a matted covering of turf.

Meanwhile another mound is forming externally, which by the like process rises and gives protection to the first. If the sea forces its way through one of the external and incomplete mounds, the breach is soon repaired. After a while the marine plants within the areas inclosed by these embankments are succeeded by a better species of herbage affording good pasturage, and the sands become sufficiently firm to support buildings.

_Destruction of Dunwich by the sea._--Of the gradual destruction of Dunwich, once the most considerable seaport on this coast, we have many authentic records. Gardner, in his history of that borough, published in 1754, shows, by reference to doc.u.ments, beginning with Doomsday Book, that the cliffs at Dunwich, Southwold, Eastern, and Pakefield, have been always subject to wear away. At Dunwich, in particular, two tracts of land which had been taxed in the eleventh century, in the time of King Edward the Confessor, are mentioned in the Conqueror's survey, made but a few years afterwards, as having been devoured by the sea. The losses, at a subsequent period, of a monastery,--at another of several churches,--afterwards of the old port,--then of four hundred houses at once,--of the church of St. Leonard, the high-road, town-hall, jail, and many other buildings, are mentioned, with the dates when they perished.

It is stated that, in the sixteenth century, not one-quarter of the town was left standing; yet the inhabitants retreating inland, the name was preserved, as has been the case with many other ports when their ancient site has been blotted out. There is, however, a church of considerable antiquity still standing, the last of twelve mentioned in some records.

In 1740, the laying open of the churchyard of St. Nicholas and St.

Francis, in the sea-cliffs, is well described by Gardner, with the coffins and skeletons exposed to view--some lying on the beach, and rocked