"Yes! where the huntsman winds his matin horn,
And the couch’d hare beneath the covert trembles;
Where shepherds tend their flocks, and grows the corn;
Where Fashion on our gay Parade assembles—
Wild Horses, Deer, and Elephants have strayed,
Treading beneath their feet old Ocean’s races."
Horace Smith.
Lign. 267. Brighton Cliffs, near Kemptown,
From the Sea-shore, looking East, or towards Rottingdean.
| a.—The Elephant-bed. b.—An ancient Sea-beach, composed of shingle and boulders of granite, porphyry, &c. c.—The Chalk which forms the base of the cliff. |
A stroll from Kemptown along the sea-shore to Rottingdean is replete with interest, for the strata of which the cliffs are composed clearly demonstrate that in very remote periods great changes have taken place in the relative position of the sea and land along the Sussex coast.
Some years since, the bare face of the Cliffs, from the entrance to the esplanade of the Chain-pier at the Old Steyne, to Kemptown, was completely exposed, and presented a most interesting section of the strata. But at the present time, as every one knows, no portion of the cliffs is visible west of the groin below Kemptown and the sections in my first work (Foss. South D. pl. iv. and v.) are the only records of the appearances formerly presented, and now concealed by the sea-wall. Even the cliffs immediately beyond Kemptown are rapidly diminishing from the action of the waves, which dash with greater violence against their base in consequence of the means taken to protect the adjoining terraces from the encroachments of the sea.
The appearance of the Cliffs east of Kemptown is shown in the sketch, [Lign. 267]. But further along the shore, towards Rottingdean, in a ravine excavated by the encroachments of the sea, the ancient chalk-cliff behind the mass of strata seen above is exposed; this is represented in Lign. 268. A description of the appearances at this point will elucidate the nature of the strata of which these cliffs are composed.