Rambles among the Channel Islands / by a Naturalist.

Date:
[1855?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rambles among the Channel Islands / by a Naturalist. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    186/402 (page 174)
    the same character of abruptness of outline and perpendicularity of face, and their height is, probably, nearly three hundred feet. To look down upon the rapid current of blue sea below, foaming against the broken masses of rock which lie at the base of the cliffs, presents the spectator with a scene not only wild in its cha- racter, but peculiar in its features. A tolerably easy pathway leads to the shore, and the re- markable constituents of the picture here appear still more surprising. The cliffs, which are of schistose rock, have yielded with greater facility than usual to the destructive influence of air and water. Fragments of broken rocks detached from their summits lie prostrate at their base, and are now the prey of the overwhelming surge, which is constantly removing them particle by particle, and rounding their general outline. Some of these great masses are twenty feet or so square, and have been polished in a remarkable manner by the action of the Avaves. Their composition, texture, and colour, vary greatly. But in order to obtain the best view of what we may consider to be the most striking objects in the natural scenery of these islands, the bay must be quitted, and a boat employed in order to land upon some of the projeeting rocks a little outside the bay. Upon a rock which was slowly being relinquished by the tide, we stood