CHAPTER VI.

THE RESTORATIVE POWER OF THE GERMAN OCEAN PROVED IN CERTAIN LOCALITIES.—ASSISTANCE GIVEN TO IT FROM THE STRANDING OF A VESSEL AT PURBECK, AND ON THIS COAST AT HASBOROUGH.—HILLS OF BLOWN SAND OR DUNES CONSIDERED—EXAMPLES OF THEIR STABILITY GIVEN AT WELLS, CLEY, &C., AND OF THEIR INSTABILITY AT ECCLES, PALLING, &C.—SEA-BREACH COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED.—THE ENGAGEMENT AND OPINIONS OF AN EMINENT ENGINEER IN 1804.—CONCLUDING REMARKS.

EXAMPLES of Nature endeavouring to combat with herself are shown from the immense quantity of sand, shingle, &c., brought from low to high water mark, during the summer months, and should easterly winds prevail, the sand is removed towards the cliffs, and accumulates in some situations more than in others. Thus at Walcot, {47} a deposition of sea beach materials commenced in 1839, and gradually augmented from six to eight feet in depth, within a distance of one mile and a half, and in a space comprising a few yards, it attained a perpendicularity above the cliffs, extending to high water mark, and the tidal wave, even in a northerly wind, ebbed and flowed without disturbing its surface, from the above period to November, 1843. A gale of wind then ensued from the north-west, upon a neap tide, which removed the greater part of the mound of sand, and a subsequent gale, upon a spring tide, in February, 1844, swept away the remainder.

A similar instance of accumulation was observed to have taken place on the Essex coast, commencing about the same period, and extended a distance of seven miles, which appeared in December, 1843, likely to remain. {48a}

The flat shores at Wells {48b} are considerably elevated above the depths of the ocean, into which they probably terminate in a gradual descent. The stranding of three large vessels off Winterton {48c} and Horsey, {48d} years ago, have possibly prevented its encroachments in these places.

When a vessel is stranded in shallow water, it usually becomes the nucleus of a sand-bank, as has been exemplified in several of our harbours, and this circumstance tends greatly to its preservation. Between the years 1780 and 1790, a vessel from Purbeck, laden with three hundred tons of stone, struck on a shoal off the entrance of Poole harbour, and foundered; the crew were saved, but the vessel and cargo remain to this day at the bottom.—Since that period, the shoal at the entrance of the harbour has so extended itself in a westerly direction, towards Peveril Point, in Purbeck, that the navigable channel is thrown a mile nearer that point. The cause is obvious; the tidal current deposits the sediment with which it is charged, around any object which checks its velocity. Matter also drifted along the bottom, is arrested by any obstacle, and accumulates round it, just as the African sand-winds raise a small hillock over the carcase of every dead camel exposed on the surface of the desert. {49a}

Upon the 18th day of February, in the year 1807, the Hunter cutter, {49b} during a heavy gale, struck on a shoal of sand in the offing, and finally drifted into a shallow near the shore, about a quarter of a mile to the northward of the old cart gap, at Hasborough, the stern part towards the cliff. In a very short time, sand, shingle, &c., accumulated around her, and completely filled the shallow to its utmost length. Within twelve months after, several shoals and shallows showed themselves opposite the town gap, evincing that the flowing of the tide had received a check, which proved an inconvenience to fishermen, as they had to heave their boats much farther before they could launch them into the sea; they were so aware that the Hunter cutter was the cause of this circumstance, that many a harsh expression did they utter towards her. In less than two years, more than one hundred yards could be paced from her bows on the ebbing of the tide to low water mark, and a large mound of sand accumulated between her stern and the cliff, which existed upwards of twenty years, and arrested the devastation of the sea directly opposite. From subsequent gales, however, the cliffs were taken away to the northward, the water intruded behind the mound of sand, and entirely removed it. A greater proof of the check the waves had received was observed at low water mark, a ridge of gravel was deposited and left undisturbed on the ebbing of the tide, extending from the Hunter cutter to Bacton coal gap, a distance of three miles to the northward; the first spring tide, however, swept away nearly the whole of the ridge of gravel, except that portion nearest the Hunter cutter.

Although the benefit derived to the preservation of the cliffs from the stranding of the vessel has been entirely lost, still to the present time no shallows have formed immediately adjacent to her, and the beach would have been higher than it now is, had her bulwarks, taffrel, &c., not been removed.

The irruption of the sea, through the breaches in the dunes of sand, {50a} in the neighbourhood of Eccles, {50b} Horsey, {50c} Waxham, {50d} &c., having been attended with serious inconvenience and spoliation, caused a body of highly respected and influential gentlemen to be appointed Sea-breach Commissioners, and in the year 1804, they engaged an eminent Engineer, since deceased, who, among other information, gave it as his opinion, that if the shallows were all filled up, and the beach kept on an inclined plane, the sea would never gain on the Norfolk coast. He did not, however, point out how such an assertion could be substantiated, or submit a plan to effect so desirable an object; but the accident occurring to the Hunter cutter, the effects produced from her immersion in a cavity on the beach, the benefit in preserving the lands opposite for a long period, and the discontinuation of shallows forming in her immediate neighbourhood, at once indicate the truth of his assertion, and suggest the plan about to be submitted.