Small peninsulas are known as promontories or headlands, and the
extremity as a cape. The opposite form, an inlet of the sea, is known
when wide as a gulf, bay or bight, according to size and degree of
inflection, or as a fjord or ria when long and narrow. It is
convenient to employ a specific name for a projection of a coast-line
less pronounced than a peninsula, and for an inlet less pronounced
than a bay or bight; outcurve and incurve may serve the turn. The
varieties of coast-lines were reduced to an exact classification by
Richthofen, who grouped them according to the height and slope of the
land into cliff-coasts (_Steilkusten_)--narrow beach coasts with
cliffs, wide beach coasts with cliffs, and low coasts, subdividing
each group according as the coast-line runs parallel to or crosses the
line of strike of the mountains, or is not related to mountain
structure. A further subdivision depends on the character of the
inter-relation of land and sea along the shore producing such types as
a fjord-coast, ria-coast or lagoon-coast. This extremely elaborate
subdivision may be reduced, as Wagner points out, to three types--the
continental coast where the sea comes up to the solid rock-material of
the land; the marine coast, which is formed entirely of soft material
sorted out by the sea; and the composite coast, in which both forms
are combined.
Coast-lines.
On large-scale maps it is necessary to show two coast-lines, one for
the highest, the other for the lowest tide; but in small-scale maps a
single line is usually wider than is required to represent the whole
breadth of the inter-tidal zone. The measurement of a coast-line is
difficult, because the length will necessarily be greater when
measured on a large-scale map where minute irregularities can be taken
into account. It is usual to distinguish between the general
coast-line measured from point to point of the headlands disregarding
the smaller bays, and the detailed coast-line which takes account of
every inflection shown by the map employed, and follows up river
entrances to the point where tidal action ceases. The ratio between
these two coast-lines represents the "coastal development" of any
region.
Submarine forms.
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