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.

    74/402 (page 62)
    sides of them. Thus, were such a group of rocks - seen from the base to the summit, it would ap- ■ pear in the form of a tall mass of rocks inclined probably in one direction, but on the others ■ having perpendicular sides. The effect of such : a mass standing up from the sea-bottom, upon i the vast body of water impelled by the Atlantic wave along the channel, may be readily con- • ceived. In consequence of the perpendicularity of this rocky sea-tower, vessels of the greatest burden may pass so closely as almost to scrape the sides of the rock, without fear of touching the bottom. It has been said that a line-of-battle ship may pass safely within an oar’s length of the rock. It is impossible, however, to view the velocity with which the tide sweeps round these rocks without a suspicion that beneath the circling green waters some sunken masses must lie hid; and the broken aspect of the whole group appears to confirm this idea. For at va- rious distances from the main mass of rock, the heads of rocks, half hidden, half exposed, occa- sionally appear rising over the waves. The tide runs through the channels left between the main rock forming the Caskets, and the rocks which stud the waters in its vicinity, with such violence as to render it comparable to a great river; and under the shelter of the rocks a number of mimic whirlpools are produced. The