groynes have been placed. In all there are about twenty groynes in front of these sea-walls.

Some of these groynes consist of 3-inch planking, bolted or spiked to 12-inch square piles 10 feet long, driven from 5 to 6 feet into the clay, spaced 3 feet apart. The top is made to rake with the inclination of the sand. Other groynes are constructed of 10-inch by 4-inch sheet piles 10 feet long, and driven 3 to 5 feet into the clay.

Since these piles have been fixed, the swills and low places in the upper part of the beach have become filled up, and the clay bed covered to a depth of from 3 to 4 feet with clean hard sand. Generally the sand is level on both sides, but at some of the groynes the beach is from 1 foot to 18 inches highest on the north side. The top of the groynes is about 1 to 2 feet above the surface of the sand.

Fraisthorpe. From Hildersthorpe south of Bridlington, nearly to Fraisthorpe, the cliffs, which vary in height from 10 to 30 feet, consist of an upper layer of sand and silt resting on clay containing about 10 per cent. of boulders and pebbles. In the upper layer is some gravel and a layer from 3 to 5 feet thick of small chalk pebbles, about half an inch in diameter, and some gravel.

At Fraisthorpe there is a depression in the cliffs for about half a mile, which is filled by low hills of blown sand. There is a small accumulation of shingle on the beach, with scattered boulders up to 9 inches in diameter.

The direction of the movement of material along the coast is clearly shown by the number of fragments of bricks, tiles, pottery, and glass bottles which have been drifted along the beach from Bridlington.

The sands here are dry and firm about 30 yards from the cliff, lying at an angle of 1 in 15, below which they are very flat, and extend out to low water for a distance of 300 yards.

Some groynes have been placed on the beach with the view of protecting the cliffs, which are much eroded. Most of these, however, are now in ruins. They originally consisted of 4-inch planking spiked to round fir piles 7 feet above the beach, 9 inches in diameter, with 6-inch round struts on each side, attached to other piles driven into the beach. The top of the planking is 3 feet above the present level of the beach. They extend out from the cliffs for 30 yards at an angle of 120 degrees away from the direction of the drift, and are 200 yards apart.

Where the boarding remains, they seem to have been of some effect in holding up material, as for about their length from the cliffs the beach is covered with sand, beyond which is a low 8 to 10 yards wide where the clay is exposed, the sand beyond this being about the same height as that near the cliff, beyond which it is low and wet to low water.

Hornsea. Between Fraisthorpe and Hornsea no attempt has been made to protect the coast. The cliffs, which consist of boulder clay and drift, to the north and south are from 25 to 30 feet high, but opposite the town there is a depression which extends inland, and affords the site for two large fresh-water lakes.

The loss of land here has been considerable. The hamlet of Hornsea Beck, at an inquiry held in the seventeenth century, was reported as "decayed by the flowing of the sea," and that thirty-eight houses and several fields had been washed away since the time of Edward I. A pier had been erected here, which afforded a certain amount of protection, and while it existed "the decay was very little." It was subsequently washed away, and then the loss of coast became greater, as much as 13 yards a year disappearing. Since the middle of the last century the loss appears to have been going on at the average rate of two yards a year. Some years ago the highway running along the cliffs was washed away. An order was made by the Justices on the inhabitants to restore it. This was overruled on appeal to the Superior Court, where it was held that the sea had released the parish of its obligation to maintain the road.

The shingle here consists of pebbles derived from fragments of various rocks from the drift in the cliffs, and varies in size from inch to 2 inches in diameter, and in places is piled up against the cliffs above O.H.W.S.T. for a width of 30 or 40 yards. There are amongst it and lying on the beach several rounded lumps of chalk, the largest of which are 12 inches in diameter. These lumps of chalk have probably been drifted from Flamborough, which is about 17 miles distant.

Two groynes were erected by a private owner in 1869 for the protection of his property. They were 150 yards apart and 132 feet long, and made of 12-inch fir piles 14 feet long, driven in pairs, spaced 6 feet apart, with 11-inch by 3-inch planking. These groynes cost £3 19s. 6d. per yard run. The foot of the cliffs for a length of 110 yards was also protected by a timber breastwork,

consisting of 13-inch fir piles spaced 4 feet apart, having 13-inch by 61-inch walings at the back, and 3-inch planking. The piles were tied to back piles by 6-inch by 6-inch timber ties 15 feet long. This breastwork cost £4 per yard, but it only lasted about ten years, the timber having become decayed, and the sea washed the cliff away behind it for a distance of 5 yards.

At the southern end of Hornsea groynes were also constructed, consisting of 13-inch main piles 27 feet long driven in pairs, with two walings, and a centre row of 6-inch sheet piles 20 feet long, driven into the clay about 10 feet. The top of the sheet piling was from 9 to 10 feet above the surface of the beach. These groynes cost £600 each (Pickwell). The remains of these groynes are still on the beach in a dilapidated condition.

At the present time the foot of the cliff north of the pier is protected by a slight timber breastwork 220 yards long, and three groynes, which are more or less dilapidated. The shingle is heaped up on the north side of these from 3 to 4 feet, but there is very little shingle on the south side.

Withernsea. The cliffs on the north side are about 30 feet high; there is a depression in front of the town, the cliffs gradually rising again on the south to a height of 25 feet.

At Sands-le-Mere, about two miles north of Withernsea, the coast is low, and there is a depression which extends through Roos and Keyingham to the Humber, along which the Keyingham and Tunstall drain runs. Some years since, owing to a breach in the bank and the giving way of the sluice at the Humber, the tidal water flowed along this drain up to the coast at Sands-le-Mere.

At Owthorpe, which adjoins Withernsea, at the end of the last century the sea had reached the wall of the churchyard, and during a storm in 1816 a large part of the church fell down the cliff.

The loss of the cliffs along this part of the coast, which had been going for centuries at the rate of from 1 to 3 yards a year, was stopped about thirty years ago owing to the accumulation of beach due to the groynes erected by Mr. Pickwell for the Withernsea Pier Commissioners. A concrete wall was about the same time erected all along the front of the town.

Beyond the sea-wall on the north the shingle lies at the foot of the cliffs, and in front of the sea-wall, in a bank above high water for a width of from 40 to 60 yards; it then slopes down

at an angle of 1 in 2, and below this is sand and small shingle, lying at a slope of 1 in 10; for the rest of the distance to L.W.S.T. the beach is firm sand. The shingle is derived from the cliffs, and consists of pebbles from several kinds of rock, varying in size from inch to 5 inches in diameter, the average being

about 1 inch.

The groynes, which were constructed about thirty-two years ago by Mr. Pickwell, are fully described and illustrated in the Min. Proc. Inst. C.E., vol. li. They consist of 11-inch by 4-inch Baltic fir planking, secured by inch bolts to 13-inch piles spaced 5 feet apart and 23 feet long, driven 12 feet into the boulder clay; every alternate pile is supported by 13-inch by 61-inch struts, abutting against 13-inch piles driven 9 feet into the clay. They are placed about 200 yards apart at right angles to the shore, and run about 100 to 116 yards in length. The planking was added as the beach increased, the top being kept about 3 feet above the beach. The cost of the groynes was £3 7s. 6d. per lineal yard.

Mr. Pickwell, in his paper, expresses the opinion that the groynes would have been equally effective if they had been placed 300 yards instead of 200 yards apart. The effect of the groynes was at once to raise the beach, and prevent further erosion of the cliffs. Ten years after their construction it was estimated that the accumulation of shingle amounted to 500,000 tons, and that the beach had been raised 8 to 16 feet over a length of 1300 yards by 100 yards wide. Considering the small amount of attention that appears to be paid to the maintenance of these groynes, they are still in very fair order, after thirty years' wear and tear of the stormy waves of the North Sea. In many places they are buried in the shingle.

Although the groynes have efficiently protected the coast and sea-wall, they do not prevent the removal of the shingle during gales. Thus, in the heavy gales of the winter of 1897, and the four days' easterly gale in March, 1898, the shingle was scoured out from the front of the concrete sea-wall at Withernsea to a depth of from 6 to 10 feet. Although it was gradually working back, there was still, several months after the gale, a depression below the top of the groynes in front of the sea-wall of from 8 to 10 feet, the beach 50 yards further out having accumulated up to the top of the groynes. The coast to the south of Withernsea has also been groyned for a short distance, but these groynes are in a dilapidated condition, nearly all the planking having gone.

Between Withernsea and being rapidly degraded, no attempted.

Kilnsea, although the cliffs are

means of protection has been

During the present winter (1901) further damage was done to these cliffs during the very high tide that occurred in December and the subsequent gales. Several acres of land fell south of Withernsea; the coastguard station at Warholme has had to be condemned; the cliff opposite North Farm, Withernsea, was so much eroded that a portion of the farm buildings were destroyed; at Dimlington about half an acre of land fell in two tides; and a long stretch of land was carried away from the cliff near Lane End at Kilnsea.

Kilnsea. There is here only a narrow neck of land that separates the North Sea from the estuary of the river Humber. The width opposite Kilnsea church is about 50 chains, diminishing at the Warren, the head of the Spurn, to about 10 chains. The surface of some of this land near the Humber is 5 feet below H.W.S.T.

As the termination of the name denotes, at the time of the Saxons this was an island, being separated from Easington by a creek running between the sea and the estuary, the site of which is now known as the Long Bank.

Considerable alarm has from time to time been entertained locally, lest, owing to the wearing away of the shore, the sea should break across this narrow neck of land. About three years ago, by direction of the Board of Trade, their engineer made an examination of this coast, when he reported that erosion was proceeding, that it would continue, but that there was no reason to fear that a breach would be made through the land to the Humber.

The cliffs here gradually die out from about 30 feet at the north end to 10 feet opposite the church, and then disappear altogether. They consist of drift sand and clay, the boulder clay dropping down below the level of the beach. At the south end there are sand-hills, which continue on to the Spurn.

The waste of the cliff and shore has been very great, the old village and half the land in the parish having been washed away. In 1826 the old church fell, and the present one was subsequently erected further inland.

A record of the rate of erosion in modern times is afforded by an inscription cut on a stone let into the Blue Bell Inn, which