506 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



watering-places owe their attractions to similar considerations, as we 

 can see when we examine the igneous masses of the Scotch Highlands, 

 which form the chief heights of the Grampians ; or when we remem- 

 ber that the self-same Cambrian rocks recur in the loveliest part of 

 North Wales and in the Westmoreland lake district. So too in Dev- 

 onshire, the regular tourist tract from Ilfracombe to Lynton and Lyn- 

 mouth lies through the wild Devonian strata, which, interspersed with 

 granite, once more reappear on the other tourist coast-line from Tor- 

 quay to Land's End. Those who admire Ramsgate and Margate, with 

 their bare, treeless downs and white chalk-cliffs, may also content them- 

 selves with the similar scenery of Dover, Folkstone, Eastbourne, or 

 Brighton ; but a different type of mind will prefer the wooded vales 

 of Hastings, where the Weald comes down with its pleasant broken 

 country to the seashore. 



One last word may be given to the influence of geology upon art. 

 We can hardly deny that the whole aesthetic development of Egypt 

 must have been largely affected by its alternation between solid gran- 

 ite and the mud of the Nile. So, too, the Parthenon and the Apollo 

 must have owed much to the marble of Paros and Pentelicus. China 

 has doubtless been greatly influenced by the presence of kaolin clay. 

 In Assyria, brick necessarily formed the chief building material ; and 

 in Upper India the monasteries and stupas of the Buddhist Emperor 

 Asoka are still recognized by their huge, sun-dried bricks. Chrysele- 

 phantine art could never alone produce high results ; marble and ala- 

 baster would naturally yield far more elevated works. In Britain we 

 may look for similar effects of the geological environment. 



As early as the age when Stonehenge was piled up, building-stone 

 was selected for special purposes, since the outer circle of that prehis- 

 toric monument consists of the Sarcen bowlders of the neighboring 

 plain ; but the inner pillars are of diabase, and have been brought 

 from some unknown distance. During the middle ages Caen stone 

 was frequently imported for building churches or other important 

 architectural works. Before the Norman Conquest, however, most 

 English buildings were of wood, so that, "to timber a minster," not 

 to build a church, is the good early English expression of the chroni- 

 cle. In chalk districts, at a later date, broken flints were often em-, 

 ployed, and they give a mean appearance to the abbey ruins and 

 churches at Reading, as well as to most of the older edifices at Brigh- 

 ton. Oxford, however, on the Oolite, is happily built of good native 

 or imported stone. In modern times, London, standing in the midst 

 of the brick-earth, has fallen a victim to the miseries of stucco,* until 

 the Queen Anne revivalists have endeavored to restore an honest red 

 brick ; whereas Edinburgh, surrounded by excellent building-stone, 

 has been able to do justice to its magnificent natural situation, and 



* Parker's cement, manufactured from the septaria of the London clay, is answerable 

 for the outer coating of our West-end houses. 



