Beach

Beach, the sloping accumulation of mud, sand, or shingle between high and low water marks along the sea margin. In many places similar accumulations, known as raised beaches, occur above the present high-water mark, as at Brighton, Weston-super-Mare, etc. As many as four or five may occur, like terraces, one above the other, as in the north of Norway, and some of those in South America are 1,300 feet above the sea. They are sometimes accompanied by inland cliffs and sea-worn caves, and, containing as they do marine shells similar to those living in the adjoining sea, they prove alteration in the relative level of land and water to have occurred in times geologically recent.