GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 5 



But it is in the west and south-west of our island that we find 

 both the most furious waves and the rocks that are best able to 

 resist their attacks. Here we are exposed to the full force of the 

 frontal attacks of the Atlantic, and it is here that the dashing 

 breakers seek out the weaker portions of the upturned and contorted 

 strata, eating out deep inlets, and often loosening enormous 

 blocks of the hardest material, hurling them on the rugged beach, 

 where they are eventually to be reduced to small fragments by the 

 continual clashing and grinding action of the smaller masses as 



Fra. 3. PENLEE POINT, CORNWALL 



they are thrown up by the angry sea. Here it is that we find the 

 most rugged and precipitous cliffs, bordering a more or less wild 

 and desolate country, now broken by a deep and narrow chasm 

 where the resonant roar of the sea ascends to the dizzy heights 

 above, and anon stretching seaward into a rocky headland, whose 

 former greatness is marked by a continuation of fantastic outliers 

 and smaller wave-worn masses of the harder strata. Here, too, we 

 find that the unyielding rocks give a permanent attachment to the 

 red and olive weeds which clothe them, and which provide a hooie 



