240 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



liberated from a floating sepulchre, after an entomb- 

 ment of three days and three nights in the mighty- 

 deep." There is another curious detail in this story 

 which must not be omitted. On Wednesday afternoon, 

 two pilot-boats fell in with the wreck floating bottom 

 up, at about a league and a half from the islands. They 

 took her in tow for about an hour, when their towing- 

 ropes broke, and as night was approaching, with a heavy 

 sea running and bad weather threatening, they aban- 

 doned her, not having the faintest suspicion that there 

 were human beings alive on board a vessel which was 

 floatino' with little more than her keel above water. 

 Nevertheless, although they abandoned the wreck, their 

 temporary aid had been essential ; had they not taken 

 her in tow, the set of the current would have drifted 

 her clear of the islands into the broad Atlantic waste.* 

 Granite is the substance of these islands. Generally 

 it is thought that Scilly is only a continuation of the 

 granite of Land's End ; against which conclusion the 

 idea of a separate and distinct range seems supported 

 by the fact that, in dredging between the islands and 

 the mainland, sea-weed is often brought up attached to 

 bits of slate and greenstone ; and the Wolf Eock, which 

 lies not far southward of a line from the Land's End to 

 Scilly, is composed of this same greenstone. What 

 geologists call " the strike " of the granite here is, with 

 few exceptions, towards the north or north-north-west. 



* For this narrative I am indebted to North's Weel in the Isles of 

 Scilly — a work full of valuable details for any one who may contem- 

 plate a visit to these Isles, 



