Geologists will
explain anything. They now assert that the Bank is the result of tidal
currents which sweep along the coast eastwards--that they have destroyed
beds in the cliff containing such pebbles, and as the current loses
strength so the bigger and heavier stones are dropped first and the
smaller only reach the places where the current disappears.
[Illustration: CHESIL BEACH, PORTLAND.]
This portion of the sea, known as the West Bay, was the largest
indentation on the coast, and on that account was doubly dangerous to
ships caught or driven there in a storm, especially before the time when
steam was applied to them, and when the constant traffic through the
Channel between Spain and Spanish Flanders furnished many victims, for
in those days the wrecks were innumerable. Strange fish and other
products of the tropical seas had drifted hither across the Atlantic
from the West Indies and America, and in the fishing season the fin
whale, blue shark, threshers and others had been caught, also the sun
fish, boar fish, and the angler or sea-devil. Rare mosses and lichens,
with agates, jaspers, coloured flints and corals, had also been found on
the Chesil Bank; but the most marvellous of all finds, and perhaps that
of the greatest interest, was the Mermaid, which was found there in June
1757.
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