Outlines of the Earth's History: A Popular Study in Physiography

by Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

Having considered in a general way the action of waves as they roll in to the shore, bearing with them the solar energy which was contributed to them by the winds, we shall now take up in some detail the work which goes on along the coast line—work which is mainly accomplished by wave action.

On most coast lines the observer readily notes that the shore is divided into two different kinds of faces—those where the inner margin of the wave-swept belt comes against rocky steeps, and those bordered by a strand altogether composed of materials which the surges have thrown up. These may be termed for convenience cliff shores and wall-beach shores. We shall begin our inquiry with cliff shores, for in those sections of the coast line the sea is doing its most characteristic and important work of assaulting the land. If the student has an opportunity to approach a set of cliffs of hard rock in time of heavy storm, when the waves have somewhere their maximum height, he should seek some headland which may offer him safe foothold whence he can behold the movements which are taking place. If he is so fortunate as to have in view, as well may be the case, cliffs which extend down into deep water, and others which are bordered by rude and generally steeply sloping beaches covered with large stones, he may perceive that the waves come in against the cliffs which plunge into deep water without taking on the breaker form. In this case the undulation strikes but a moderate blow; the wave is not greatly broken. The part next the rock may shoot up as a thin sheet to a considerable height; it is evident that while the ongoing wave applies a good deal of pressure to the steep, it does not deliver its energy in the effective form of a blow as when the wave overturns, or in the consequent rush of the water up a beach slope. It is easy to perceive that firm-set rock cliffs, with no beaches at their bases, can almost indefinitely withstand the assaults. On the steep and stony beach, because of its relatively great declivity, the breaker or surf forms far in, and even in its first plunge often attains the base of the precipice. The blow of the overfalling as well as that of the inrush moves about stones of great size; those three feet or more in diameter are often hurled by the action against the base of the steep, striking blows, the sharp note of which can often be heard above the general roar which the commotion produces. The needlelike crags forming isles standing at a distance from the shore, such as are often found along hard rock coasts, are singularly protected from the action of effective waves. The surges which strike against them are unarmed with stones, and the water at their bases is so deep that it does not sway with the motion with sufficient energy to move them on the bottom. Where a cliff is in this condition, it may endure until an elevation of the coast line brings its base near the level of the sea, or until the process of decay has detached a sufficient quantity of stone to form a talus or inclined plane reaching near to the water level.

As before noted, it is the presence of a sloping beach reaching to about the base of the cliff which makes it possible for the waves to strike at with a hammer instead of with a soft hand. Battering at the base of the cliff, the surges cut a crease along the strip on which they strike, which gradually enters so far that the overhanging rock falls of its own weight. The fragments thus delivered to the sea are in turn broken up and used as battering instruments until they are worn to pieces. We may note that in a few months of heavy weather the stones of such a fall have all been reduced to rudely spherical forms. Observations made on the eastern face of Cape Ann, Mass., where the seas are only moderately heavy, show that the storms of a single winter reduce the fragments thrown into the sea from the granite quarries to spheroidal shapes, more than half of their weight commonly being removed in the form of sand and small pebbles which have been worn from their surfaces.

We can best perceive the effect of battering action which the sea applies to the cliffs by noting the points where, owing to some chance features in the structure in the rock, it has proved most effective. Where a joint or a dike, or perhaps a softer layer, if the rocks be bedded, causes the wear to go on more rapidly, the waves soon excavate a recess in which the pebbles are retained, except in stormy weather, in an unmoved condition. When the surges are heavy, these stones are kept in continuous motion, receding as the wave goes back, and rushing forward with its impulse until they strike against the firm-set rock at the end of the chasm. In this way they may drive in a cut having the length of a hundred feet or more from the face of the precipice. In most cases the roofs over these sea caves fall in, so that the structure is known as a chasm. Occasionally these roofs remain, in which case, for the reason that the floor of the cutting inclines upward, an opening is made to the surface at their upper end, forming what is called in New England a "spouting horn"; from the inland end of the tunnel the spray may be thrown far into the air. As long as the cave is closed at this inner end, and is not so high but that it may be buried beneath a heavy wave, the inrushing water compresses the air in the rear parts of the opening. When the wave begins to retreat this air blows out, sending a gust of spray before it, the action resembling the discharge of a great gun from the face of a fortification. It often happens that two chasms converging separate a rock from the cliff. Then a lowering of the coast may bring the mass to the state of a columnar island, such as abound in the Hebrides and along various other shores.

If a cliff shore retreats rapidly, it may be driven back into the shore, and its face assumes the curve of a small bay. With every step in this change the bottom is sure to become shallower, so that the waves lose more and more of their energy in friction over the bottom. Moreover, in entering a bay the friction which the waves encounter in running along the sides is greater than that which they meet in coming in upon a headland or a straight shore. The result is, with the inward retreat of the steep it enters on conditions which diminish the effectiveness of the wave stroke. The embayment also is apt to hold detritus, and so forms in time a beach at the foot of the cliff, over which the waves rarely are able to mount with such energy as will enable them to strike the wall in an effective manner. With this sketch of the conditions of a cliff shore, we will now consider the fate of the broken-tip rock which the waves have produced on that section of the coast land.

By observation of sea-beaten cliffs the student readily perceives that a great amount of rocky matter has been removed from most cliff-faced shores. Not uncommonly it can be shown that such sea faces have retreated for several miles. The question now arises, What becomes of the matter which has been broken up by the wave action? In some part the rock, when pulverized by the pounding to which it is subjected, has dissolved in the water. Probably ninety per cent of it, however, retains the visible state, and has a fate determined by the size of the fragments of which it is composed. If these be as fine as mud, so that they may float in the water, they are readily borne away by the currents which are always created along a storm-swept shore, particularly by the undertow or bottom outcurrent—the "sea-puss," as it is sometimes called—that sweeps along the bottom from every shore, against which the waves form a surf. If as coarse as sand grains, or even very small pebbles, they are likely to be drawn out, rolling over the bottom to an indefinite distance from the sea margin. The coarser stones, however, either remain at the foot of the cliff until they are beaten to pieces, or are driven along the shore until they find some embayment into which they enter. The journey of such fragments may, when the wind strikes obliquely to the shore, continue for many miles; the waves, running with the wind, drive the fragments in oscillating journeys up and down the beach, sometimes at the rate of a mile or more a day. The effect of this action can often be seen where a vessel loaded with brick or coal is wrecked on the coast. In a month fragments of the materials may be stretched along for the distance of many miles on either side of the point where the cargo came ashore. Entering an embayment deep enough to restrain their further journey, the fragments of rock form a boulder beach, where the bits roll to and fro whenever they are struck by heavy surges. The greater portion of them remain in this mill until they are ground to the state of sand and mud. Now and then one of the fragments is tossed up beyond the reach of the waves, and is contributed to the wall of the beach. In very heavy storms these pebbles which are thrown inland may amount in weight to many tons for each mile of shore.

The study of a pebbly beach, drawn from crest to the deep water outside, will give an idea as to the history of its work. On either horn of the crescent by which the pebbles are imported into the pocket we find the largest fragments. If the shore of the bay be long, the innermost part of the recess may show even only very small pebbles, or perhaps only fine sand, the coarser material having been worn out in the journey. On the bottom of the bay, near low tide, we begin to find some sand produced by the grinding action. Yet farther out, below high-tide mark, there is commonly a layer of mud which represents the finer products of the mill.

Boulder beaches are so quick in answering to every slight change in the conditions which affect them that they seem almost alive. If by any chance the supply of detritus is increased, they fill in between the horns, diminish the incurve of the bay, and so cause its beach to be more exposed to heavy waves. If, on the other hand, the supply of grist to the mill is diminished, the beach becomes more deeply incurved, and the wave action is proportionately reduced. We may say, in general, that the curve of these beaches represents a balance between the consumption and supply of the pebbles which they grind up. The supply of pebbles brought along the shore by the waves is in many cases greatly added to by a curious action of seaweeds. If the bottom of the water off the coast is covered by these fragments, as is the case along many coast lines within the old glaciated districts, the spores of algæ are prone to take root upon them. Fastening themselves in those positions, and growing upward, the seaweeds may attain considerable size. Being provided with floats, the plant exercises a certain lifting power on the stone, and finally the tugging action of the waves on the fronds may detach the fragments from the bottom, making them free to journey toward the shore. Observing from near at hand the straight wall of the wave in times of heavy storm, the present writer has seen in one view as many as a dozen of these plant-borne stones, sometimes six inches in diameter, hanging in the walls of water as it was about to topple over. As soon as they strike the wave-beaten part of the shore these stones are apt to become separated from the plants, though we can often notice the remains or prints of the attachments adhering to the surface of the rock. Where the pebbles off the shore are plenty, a rocky beach may be produced by this process of importation through the agency of seaweeds without any supply being brought by the waves along the coast line.

Returning to sand beaches, we enter the most interesting field of contact between seas and lands. Probably nine tenths of all the coast lines of the open ocean are formed of arenaceous material. In general, sand consists of finely broken crystals of silica or quartz. These bits are commonly distinctly faceted; they rarely have a spherical form. Not only do accumulations of sand border most of the shore line, but they protect the land against the assaults of the sea, and this in the following curious manner: When shore waves beat pebbles against each other, they rapidly wear to bits; we can hear the sound of the wearing action as the wave goes to and fro. We can often see that the water is discoloured by the mud or powdered rock. When, however, the waves tumble on a sandy coast, they make but a muffled sound, and produce no mud. In fact, the particles of sand do not touch each other when they receive the blow. Between them there lies a thin film of water, drawn in by the attraction known as capillarity, which sucks the fluid into a sponge or between plates of glass placed near together. The stroke of the waves slightly compresses this capillary water, but the faces of the grains are kept apart as sheets of glass may be observed to be restrained from contact when water is between them. If the reader would convince himself as to the condition of the sand grains and the water which is between them, he may do so by pressing his foot on the wet beach which the wave has just left. He will observe that it whitens and sinks a little under the pressure, but returns in good part to its original form when the foot is lifted. In the experiment he has pushed a part of the contained water aside, but he has not brought the grains together; they do not make the sound which he will often hear when the sand is dry. The result is that the sand on the seashore may wear more in going the distance of a mile in the dry sand dune than in travelling for hundreds along the wet shore.

If the rock matter in the state of sand wore as rapidly under the heating of the waves as it does in the state of pebbles, the continents would doubtless be much smaller than they are. Those coasts which have no other protection than is afforded by a low sand beach are often better guarded against the inroads of the sea than the rock-girt parts of the continents. It is on account of this remarkable endurance of sand of the action of the waves that the stratified rocks which make up the crust of the earth are so thick and are to such an extent composed of sand grains.