of the plastic clay formation on the southern borders of the chalk of
the South Downs on this coast will probably be annihilated, and future
geologists will learn, from historical documents, the ancient
geographical boundaries of this group of strata in that direction. On
the opposite side of the estuary of the Ouse, on the east of Newhaven
harbor, a bed of shingle, composed of chalk flints derived from the
waste of the adjoining cliffs, had accumulated at Seaford for several
centuries. In the great storm of November, 1824, this bank was entirely
swept away, and the town of Seaford inundated. Another great beach of
shingle is now forming from fresh materials.

The whole coast of Sussex has been incessantly encroached upon by the
sea from time immemorial; and, although sudden inundations only, which
overwhelmed fertile or inhabited tracts, are noticed in history, the
records attest an extraordinary amount of loss. During a period of no
more than eighty years, there are notices of about _twenty_ inroads, in
which tracts of land of from twenty to _four hundred acres_ in extent
were overwhelmed at once, the value of the tithes being mentioned in the
Taxatio Ecclesiastica.[424] In the reign of Elizabeth, the town of
Brighton was situated on that tract where the chain pier now extends
into the sea. In the year 1665, twenty-two tenements had been destroyed
under the cliff. At that period there still remained under the cliff 113
tenements, the whole of which were overwhelmed in 1703 and 1705. No
traces of the ancient town are now perceptible, yet there is evidence
that the sea has merely resumed its ancient position at the base of the
cliffs, the site of the whole town having been merely a beach abandoned
by the ocean for ages.

_Hampshire.--Isle of Wight._--It would be endless to allude to all the
localities on the Sussex and Hampshire coasts where the land has given
way; but I may point out the relation which the geological structure of
the Isle of Wight bears to its present shape, as attesting that the
coast owes its outline to the continued action of the sea. Through the
middle of the island runs a high ridge of chalk strata, in a vertical
position, and in a direction east and west. This chalk forms the
projecting promontory of Culver Cliff on the east, and of the Needles on
the west; while Sandown Bay on the one side, and Compton Bay on the
other, have been hollowed out of the softer sands and argillaceous
strata, which a