Naze, in the same county, the cliffs, composed of London clay,
capped by the shelly sands of the crag, reach the height of about 100
feet, and are annually undermined by the waves. The old churchyard of
Walton has been washed away, and the cliffs to the south are constantly
disappearing.

_Kent.--Isle of Sheppey._--On the coast bounding the estuary of the
Thames, there are numerous examples both of the gain and loss of land.
The Isle of Sheppey, which is now about six miles long by four in
breadth, is composed of London clay. The cliffs on the north, which are
from sixty to eighty feet high, decay rapidly, fifty acres having been
lost in twenty years, between 1810 and 1830. The church at Minster, now
near the coast, is said to have been in the middle of the island in
1780; and if the present rate of destruction should continue, we might
calculate the period, and that not a very remote one, when the whole
island will be annihilated. On the coast of the mainland, to the east of
Sheppey, is Herne Bay: a place still retaining the name of a bay,
although it is no longer appropriate, as the waves and currents have
swept away the ancient headlands. There was formerly a small promontory
in the line of the shoals where the present pier is built, by which the
larger bay was divided into two, called the Upper and Lower.[413]

[Illustration: Fig. 33.

View of Reculver Church, taken in the year 1781.

1. Isle of Sheppey. 2. Ancient chapel now destroyed. The cottage between
this chapel and the cliff was demolished by the sea, in 1782.]

Still farther east stands the church of Reculver, upon a cliff composed
of clay and sand, about twenty-five feet high. Reculver (Regulvium) was
an important military station in the time of the Romans, and appears,
from Leland's account, to have been, so late as Henry VIII.'s reign,
nearly one mile distant from the sea. In the "Gentleman's Magazine,"
there is a view of it, taken in 1781, which still represents a
considerable space as intervening between the north wall of the
churchyard and the cliff.[414] Sometime before the year 1780, the waves
had reached the site of the ancient Roman camp or fortification, the
walls of which had continued for several years after they were
undermined to overhang the sea, being firmly cemented into one mass.
They were eighty yards nearer the sea than the church, and they are
spoken of in the "Topographica Britannica," in the year 1780, as having
recently fallen