Note 14 — Chapter I · (continued 3)

Footnote 14: (return) M. de Lamblardie, ingénieur des ponts et chaussées, has made a calculation, seemingly upon good grounds, with regard to the wasting of a part of the coast of France, between the Seine and the Somme. This coast is composed of falaises, (or chalk cliffs, like the opposite coast of England), which are 200 feet high above the level of the sea, composed of strata of marl, separated by beds of flint. This coast is found to be wasted, at an average, at the rate of one foot per annum. We may thus perhaps form some idea of the time since the coast of France and that of England had been here united, or one continued mass of those strata which are the same on both those coasts.