The Student's Elements of GeologyLyell, Charles, Sir
Science
The Student's Elements of Geology
Lyell, Charles, Sir
Geology
Littoral Denudation.—Part of the action of the waves between high and
low watermark must be included in subaërial denudation, more especially
as the undermining of cliffs by the waves is facilitated by
land-springs, and these often lead to the sliding down of great masses
of land into the sea. Along our coasts we find numerous submerged
forests, only visible at low water, having the trunks of the trees
erect and their roots attached to them and still spreading through the
ancient soil as when they were living. They occur in too many places,
and sometimes at too great a depth, to be explained by a mere change in
the level of the tides, although as the coasts waste away and alter in
shape, the height to which the tides rise and fall is always varying,
and the level of high tide at any given point may, in the course of
many ages, differ by several feet or even fathoms. It is this
fluctuation in the height of the tides, and the erosion and destruction
of the sea-coast by the waves, that makes it exceedingly difficult for
us in a few centuries, or even perhaps in a few thousand years, to
determine whether there is a change by subterranean movement in the
relative level of sea and land.
We often behold, as on the coasts of Devonshire and Pembrokeshire,
facts which appear to lead to opposite conclusions. In one place a
raised beach with marine littoral shells, and in another immediately
adjoining a submerged forest. These phenomena indicate oscillations of
level, and as the movements are very gradual, they must give repeated
opportunities to the breakers to denude the land which is thus again
and again exposed to their fury, although it is evident that the
submergence is sometimes effected in such a manner as to allow the
trees which border the coast not to be carried away.
Inland Sea-cliffs.—In countries where hard limestone rocks abound,
inland cliffs have often retained faithfully for ages the characters
which they acquired when they constituted the boundary of land and sea.
Thus, in the Morea, no less than three or even four ranges of cliffs
are well-preserved, rising one above the other at different distances
from the actual shore, the summit of the highest and oldest
occasionally attaining 1000 feet in elevation. A consolidated beach
with marine shells is usually found at the base of each cliff, and a
line of littoral caverns. These ranges of cliff probably imply pauses
in the process of upheaval when the waves and currents had time to
undermine and clear away considerable masses of rock.
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