THE GIANTS' CAULDEONS. 



149 



that extend seawards for a great distance from tlie shore are nothing 

 else than the ancient foundations of the continent, which have been 

 gradually razed by denudation to a level with the water. From the 

 top of any hill on the coasts of Paimpol, Morlaix, and Abervrac'h, 

 we may thus distinguish at low tide what was the primitive form of 

 the shore. 



The deep and regular excavations known under the name of 

 " giants' cauldrons," are the most curious of the geological feats ac- 

 comi^lished by the scattered blocks. Every stone reposing on a ledge 

 of the rock where the waves break, hollows out during the course 

 of ages a kind of well, the walls of which are polished, and planed 

 by the friction. Finally, these cavities, where the gradually rounded 



Fig. 58.— " Giants' cauldrons "of Haelstolmen. 



stone does not cease to oscillate, acquire a depth and width of several 

 yards, and these are then, according to tradition, the cauldrons where 



Fig. 59.— Section of the " Giants' cauldrons" of Iladstolmen, taken along the line a S in Fig. 58. 



the giants prepared their repasts in former times. Yery remarkable 

 excavations of this kind exist on the coasts of Scandinavia, where 

 blocks of granite, rolled along by a furious sea, are retained by abrupt 

 rocks in a great number of cavities. 



