the Martello Towers along the coast are being successively undermined, and (quite recently ) the road to Pevensey has twice been destroyed ,and had to be diverted further inland. The annual loss of land there has been estimated at 7 feet a year.[1]
On the opposite side of the Channel,within 40 miles of us, we are able to measure with considerable exactness the ravages of the sea. The coast of the Boulonnais, from Cape Grisnez to the mouth of the Somme, has a general resemblance to our own. A long line of Marsh-land (Morini,the ancient name of the inhabitants, may be derived from the Celtic " Mor" or marsh ) extends for some 40 miles, being about the distance of Beachy Head from Shorncliff. This low coast is interrupted by high land and bold cliffs for several miles at Boulogne. There Caligula built, A. D . 51, a huge tower, 240 feet in circumference, a mile from the edge of the cliff. In 1544, being only 200 yards from the edge, it was fortified by the English : ground had thus been lost at the rate of 3 feet a year. In 1644 the sea under mined it to such an extent that it fell, so that in that century the sea gained 6 feet a year, nearly agreeing with the estimate given above. The ruins now stand on the verge : and were but 10 feet more of the cliff to fall, some future explorer might doubt that such a work had ever been erected . It is very certain then that our own cliffs which we see falling away every year, must in the course -
- ↑ Redman, Proceedings Institut. Civil Engineers, iii.
