38 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



by the violence of the waves on the coast of that 

 island, removed from its bed and driven along a 

 distance of eighty or ninety feet ; and in a storm 

 in 1818, a block of stone seventeen and a half 

 feet broad and two feet in thickness was borne 

 along by the waves a distance of thirty feet, and 

 having broken into pieces, the fragments, many 

 of them of great weight, were driven along still 

 further. In some instances the rocks are formed 

 of materials of various degrees of hardness. Oc- 

 casionally a broad vein of soft stone occurs sur- 

 rounded by the hardest granite. In process of 

 time the soft central substance moulders away 

 under the violent action of the sea ; and thus caves 

 of great extent are hollowed out, arches are formed, 

 and in many instances promontories or headlands 

 separated from the mainland, and straits with deep 

 water, are formed between the insulated rocks and 

 the land with which they were once connected. 

 The coasts of Scotland and Orkney, and several 

 parts of the mainland of Scotland on the north- 

 west, exhibit many phenomena of this kind. 



The process which is thus obvious in places 

 much exposed to the ravages of the waves, is con- 

 tinually carried on, with more or less rapidity, on 

 every sea-shore, causing great alterations in the 

 course of ages. Many instances of this have oc- 

 curred within comparatively limited periods, in 

 various parts of Britain. In the counties of In- 

 verness, Moray, Forfar, Fife, and others, several 

 parts of the coast have undergone great and re- 

 markable alterations. In Kincardineshire the 



