152 WRECKS ON THE PURBECK COAST. 



on board, the boat being after a while sent off with the Admiralty 

 agent taking the mail bags, who was not only justified in taking 

 precedence of the other passengers in leaving the ship, but was 

 bound to do so, and another gentleman. From Bath was learned 

 the name of the spot on which the disaster had occurred. It was 

 about half a mile south of the cliffs, which, at this part of the 

 coast are of the Kimmeridge clay, a formation which is shaly 

 and crumbling when exposed to the air, but is an actual rock 

 under water. In the blue clay, are layers of a very hard yellow 

 white limestone, the inclination of which at the spot in question, 

 is from west to east. The dark blue colour causes an effect not 

 dissimilar to that of Black Gang Chine; and a stream, giving 

 the name of Freshwater to the little inlet, comes down the cliff, 

 draining the Encombe valley. Further to the east, the yellow 

 masses of Portland sand, resting on the blue clay, form the sum- 

 mit of cliffs of some four hundred feet in height, receding from 

 the shore steeply ; and the same colour and class of rock, capped 

 with precipices of Portland oolite, stretch along, broken with an 

 occasional short swarded valley, till they end, at the distance, 

 in a straight line from the place of the misfortune, of about two 

 miles, in the perpendicular rock of St. Aldhelm's Head. The 

 only available inlet to the land, as seen from the steamer, was 

 that of Freshwater, where the massive stone steps built by the 

 late Lord Eldon lead up from the shore. 



The vessel had been steering due East, when she struck upon 

 the ground. With the way upon her, with her sails, and with 

 the effect of the tide, she advanced some hundred yards to the 

 north, and slewing half round, her stern, (for her length is three 

 hundred and twenty feet,) became another hundred yards nearer 

 the shore. Her position was nearly north and south, her 

 stern to the shore: her bows being seaward, she was placed as 

 favourably as under the circumstances could be the case, for 

 resisting the violent action of the sea, which as the tide rose 

 unusually high from the effects of the strong south westerly gales, 

 set in with a heavy swell towards the shore. The officers speak 

 in the highest terms of the general behaviour of the passengers, 

 but with the mixture of nations, and the real, together with the 

 imaginary danger, it was not unnaturally feared that they might 

 seek to use the boats at a time when to do so would be de- 

 structive to themselves. All, therefore, with the exception of 



