Through East Anglia in a Motor CarVincent, James Edmund
General
Through East Anglia in a Motor Car
Vincent, James Edmund
Norfolk (England) -- Description and travel; Suffolk (England) -- Description and travel
however, is that of a bird perched on the high lighthouse and looking
south-west over Hollesley Bay and the adjacent land to the Naze, and it
gives a very vivid idea of the struggles of the sluggish Suffolk streams
before they reach the sea.
"The triangular projection encloses salt marshes, and extends from
Aldeburgh to Landguard Point. Successive ridges or waves of shingle are,
indeed, a marked characteristic of such headlands. Under ordinary
circumstances, and when the shore line is stationary, each succeeding tide
obliterates the ridge made by the last; but when the shore is encroaching
on the sea, some great storm will throw up the shingle in the form of a
ridge, after which another accumulation commences, and eventually forms
another ridge. The development of this beach, however, has not been
invariably progressive, breaches made by storms having sometimes given a
temporary exit for the waters of the Ore and of the Butley River at the
Upper Narrows, where the part of the channel to the south would be
partially closed. The Ordnance map of 1831 shows separate knolls of shingle
for a mile southwards from North Weir Point. The point no longer exists as
there shown, the knolls having been united into a continuous bank, as
marked on the Geological Survey map, which has been corrected from a later
survey."
One more short passage is quoted here, as tending to round off the subject
under discussion, although, perhaps, it might have been quoted when we were
at Yarmouth. Still, the shifting shore did not thrust itself upon our
attention then, and now it is pushing itself forward as steadily as North
Weir Point has made its progress on the maps. "The sands of Yarmouth, like
those of Lowestoft, have, in recent years, been comparatively stationary.
The town of Yarmouth stands on a spot of sea-driven sand, thrown up in 1008
A.D."--it is no use therefore to look for Roman remains at Yarmouth
itself--"and which crosses the outfalls of the Waveney and the Yare,
enclosing a large mere--Breydon Water--the outlet of which, like that of
other Suffolk rivers, is being constantly forced southwards by the
accumulating sand from the north." All this is due to the steady trend of
the beach from the north to the south, tending to form a barrier across all
harbours and estuaries, to denude outlying capes, to fill up hollows in the
coastline; and less calculable than the influence of the tide is the
spasmodic influence of storms. What, then, is the moral? Of a truth there
are many morals. He who buys a promontory may become a landless man. His
neighbour in a hollow of the coast to the south may find himself endowed
with salt marshes, whereon the sheep of his posterity will attain a flavour
of supreme excellence. A port may become an inland community. River beds,
the boundary of many an inland county and of many an estate out of reach of
the sea, because they are accepted as eternal and immutable, are the most
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account