6 RAMBLES OF A NATUEALIST. 



stopped one day at Caen, and then, without further 

 delay, pursued my way to Granville.* 



Here I made my first acquaintance with the ocean, 

 and first learnt to understand the difference between 

 the ebbing and flowing of the tides. How vastly 

 different are the impressions produced by direct 

 observation from those which we derive through 

 books ! The gradual disappearance of the beautiful 

 beach, which I had just trodden ; the sight of the 

 waves dashing into foam as^ainst the rocks, which 

 had only lately seemed so far removed from them ; 

 the gentle lifting up of the ships, fishing-smacks and 

 boats from the bed of black mud, in which they had 

 been securely moored ; their successive rise, as each 

 in its turn floated into deep water, — all these sights, 

 everything around, filled me with sensations of Avonder 

 and admiration. 



The tides are very strong at Granville and through 

 the Channel generally ; the difference between high 

 and low water being sometimes as much as forty feet. 

 At some points, as, for instance, round Mount St. 

 Michael f , the space which is alternately covered and 



* Granville is a little town in the department of La Manche. It 

 is built on an elevated promontory which is almost entirely separated 

 from the continent by a deep cutting. Its commodious and safe 

 harbour was constructed in 1784, eight years after which the town 

 made an honourable defence against the English. Its coasting trade, 

 its oyster beds, and its cod fishery, render Granville one of the 

 most busy of our smaller commercial sea-ports. 



f The space surrounding Mount St. Michael which is alternately 

 covered and left bare by the tide amounts to 80 or 100 square 

 miles. This low and nearly level beach is intersected by sevei'al 

 streams, which frequently change their course, and thus render this 



