St. Clair Sandhills.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 9196, 6 July 1898, Page 3

St. Clair Sandhills.

MYSTERIOUS DENUDATION

The Dunedin Evening Star says of the recent break through the St. Clair sandhills at Ocean Beach and consequent inundation of St.KildaWestward from the battery, that is to say in the direction of St. Clair, the beach is quite altered in shape, the sea having washed all the sand away from the stones, and eaten through the esplanade, and cut the face of the tram road, and sliced the sandhills to their very heart, setting back the face to a line about eighteen paces inshore of Mr Mitchell’s fence. The beach is quite spoiled as a playground, and the sand taken away has entirely disappeared, px-obably forming a bank outside the old line of breakers. Though there is not much actual damage to property on the esplanade, the limit is now reached beyond which the sea cannot further go wiihout material injury. Mr G. F. M. Fraser, a St. Kilda resident, in a letter says :—We have had a heavy south-east sea, and the resultant damage to the sandhills has been very severe. The sea has encroached at the corner of Mr Mitchell’s section, and many thousands of tons of sand have disappeared ; for a quarter of a mile at least along the sea front the sand has been washedaway inalarmingquantities, and I think we are within measureable distance of “ the point of agitation.” I have not been told yet why this change should be developing at such an abnormal rate. Is it true that the bed of the beach has lowered during the last few years, and the process has been gradual, hut marked. What has caused it ? We used to blame the drain years ago, but the flow from that disappeared, and still the demolition of the sandhills went steadily on. The wall at St. Clair also came under suspicion, but the wall strews the,beach, and the sand still goes merrily seaward. Then hopeful people prophesied that the next northeaster would bring the sand back, but the prophesy as yet unfulfilled. One solution would be that there has been a steady subsidence of the surface at this point; another that the prevailing currents have permanently altered. Whatever the reason maybe, there can be no question but that the sandhills, which represent the labour of the sea for a century or more, are being obliberated at a rate that promises to efface them in a few months.