94
COAST EROSION.
THE FIRST REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION
ON COAST EROSION, &c., WITH MINUTES OF
EVIDENCE AND APPENDICES.
THIS important Blue-book was published on October 26th,
price 8s. 9d. It forms a thick volume of more than a
thousand pages. Of these 369 consist of minutes of the evidence
offered by fifty-six geologists, engineers, local officials, and other
persons possessing some special knowledge or experience of the
subject. Then the Index to the Evidence occupies 131 pages.
The second half of the volume consists of Appendices to the
Preceding Evidence, with Index. These Appendices are 28 in
number, and are also geological, engineering, historical, financial,
etc. They occupy 367 pages, and the index to them 145 pages.
Of course there is much evidence of accretion as well as of
erosion in the book. But as the gain of land on a large scale is
in estuaries such as the Wash and the Solway, and consists of a
very gradual increase of marshland, it excites scarcely any
attention, while the destruction of half-an-acre of tall cliff is sure
to be chronicled and generally known, and is commonly taken to
be but a more striking example than usual of what is everywhere
occurring.
With regard to Essex, Col. R. C. Hellard, R.E., Director
General of the Ordnance Survey, stated (p. 46), when giving
evidence on the progress of erosion and accretion during recent
years :—
" The land lost by erosion amounts to 168 acres, and the land gained by
accretion amounts to 562 acres. The difference in the total area of the foreshore
shows a loss of 2,131 acres. The erosion in Essex is chiefly along the north
shore of the Thames by Southend and on Foulness Island ; the principal accretion
lies between the estuaries of the Blackwater and the River Crouch."
When asked (p. 37) to explain the meaning of the term
"erosion of the foreshore" Col. Hellard replied :—
" The loss due to the difference of the position of low water mark.
It comes to this, that there are two areas of foreshore, one on the old
survey and one on the new, and the figures only deal with the gain or loss
on the area of foreshore ; that is to say, if the high water mark has gone back it
is an accretion to the foreshore, but if the low water mark has gone back to the
land it is an erosion of the foreshore."
Colonel Hellard added, in reply to questions, that there was,
by a coincidence, "very nearly the same total loss of foreshore