4A 
CHAP. -LVi 
MARINE CAVES. 
Effects of the Sea on Rocky Shores.—Fingal’s Cave.—Beautiful Lines of Sir 
Walter Seott.—The Antro di Nettuno. -The Cave of Hunga—Legend of its 
Discovery.—Marine Fountains.—The Skerries.—The Souffleur in Mauritius.— 
The Buffadero on the Mexican Coast. 
Wuoever has only observed the swelling of the tide on the flat 
coasts of the North Sea, has but a faint idea of the Titanic 
power which it developes on the rocky shores of the wide ocean. 
Even in fair weather, the growing flood, oscillating over the 
boundless expanse of waters, rises mm tremendous breakers, so 
that it is impossible to héhold their fury without feeling a con- 
viction that the hardest rock must ultimately be ground to 
atoms by such irresistible forces. 
Day after day, year after year, thev renew their fierce attacks, 
and as in the high Alpine valleys the tumultuous torrents rush- 
ing from the glaciers tear deep furrows in the flanks of the 
mountains, thus it is here the sea which stamps the seal of its 
might on the vanquished rocks, corrodes them into fantastic 
shapes, scoops ont wide portals in their projecting promontories, 
and hollows out deep caverns in their bosoms. 
Here, also, water appears as the beautifying element, deco- 
rating inanimate nature with picturesque forms, and the sea 
nowhere exhibits more romantic scenes than on the rocky shores 
against which her waves have been beating for many a mil- 
lennium. How manifold the shapes into which the rocky shores 
are worn! how numberless the changes which each varying 
season, nay, every hour of the day with its constant alternations 
of ebb and flood, of cloud and sunsbine, of storm or calm, 
produces in their physiognomy! Our coasts abound in beauties 
such as these; but pre-eminent above all other specimens of 
Ocean’s fantastic architecture is Fingal’s Cave, which may well 
challenge the world to show its equal. 
