Ill THE OCEAN. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



DESTRUCTION OF CLIFFS. — THE COASTS OF THE CHANNEL, — THE STRAITS OF DOVER. 

 — ACTION OF SHINGLE AND SAND. — GIANTS' CAULDRONS. — SPOUTING WELLS ON 

 THE COASTS.— TIDAL WELLS. 



Ai,TiiouGH there is necessarily an equilibrium between the work of 

 demolition and that of reconstruction, we would nevertheless at 

 first sight be tempted to believe that the sea took the greatest plea- 

 sure in destruction. On contemplating the cliffs, those perpendicular 

 walls which on various coasts rise many hundreds of yards above the 

 level of the sea, we are struck with awe to see how the repeated as- 

 saults of the waves have been sufficient thus to cut the mountains and 

 hills whose bases were formerly gently sloped to the water. From the 

 top of these cliffs, we see the tumultuous ocean spread at their feet 

 like a plane surface, and we no longer distinguish the billows but by 

 their reflections, or the breakers but by their garland of foam ; the 

 multiplied sound of the waves melts into one long murmur, which 

 dies away and rises to die away again. And yet this water, which we 

 see below at such a great depth, and which seems powerless against 

 the solid rock, has thrown down piece by piece all that part of the 

 hill or mountain, of which the cliff is but a gigantic memorial : then, 

 after having thrown down these enormous masses, it has reduced them 

 to sand, and perhaps caused the very trace of them to disappear. 

 Often not even a rock remains where promontories once jutted out. 

 The phenomena ascertained even during the short life of man, are facts 

 so grand in their progress, and so remarkable in their effects, that an 

 English savant. Captain Saxby, has proposed to make of them a 

 special science, Ondavorology* 



To gain some idea of the destructive force exercised by the waves 

 of the ocean, it is sufficient to contemplate them on a tempestuous day 

 from the height of the chalky cliffs of Dieppe or Havre. At our 

 feet we see the army of whitening billows rush to the assault of the 

 rocks. Driven at the same time by the wind, the tide, and the 

 lateral current, they leap over the rocks and shelves of the shore, 

 * Nautical Magazine^ Jan. 1864. 



