151, THE OCEAN. 



rocks, less exposed to the fury of tlie tempests than those of western 

 Europe, are also less abrupt, and forests of beech-trees descend like 

 sheets of verdure over the rums of the cliffs. Elsewhere, especially 

 on the coasts of Liguria, the promontories, formed of limestone 

 rocks harder than chalky do not fall in when their lower strata are 

 carried away by the sea, and the waves, incessantly excavating the 

 bases of these rocks, may carve them into colonnades, arched gate- 

 ways, winding galleries, and vast grottoes, where the trembling water 

 lights up the vaults with its azure hues. Other cliffs, of which the 

 promontory of Socoa, near St Jean-de-Luz, may be considered as a 

 type, are composed of slate rocks, variously inclined towards the 

 sea. "Worn away by the waves, some of the layers of schist are de- 

 tached, others bend and part from each other, like the pages of an 

 open book, allowing the water to glide in long foaming sheets into the 

 very heart of the cliff, to spring up again from it in immense spouts. 

 Finally, on other coasts the rocks cut by vertical fractures are gra- 

 dually isolated from one another, and separated into distinct groups 

 by the action of the waters. Surrounded by a roaring sea, they rise 

 on their rocky bases like towers, monstrous obelisks, gigantic ar- 

 cades, or crumbling bridges. Such are the innumerable rocks which 

 tower above the waves in the archipelago of the Orkney and Shet- 

 land Islands. Black, slender, and enveloped with spray as with 

 smoke, these wrecks of ancient cliffs justify the name of "chimney- 

 rocks " which the English have given to many of them. On the 

 northern coasts of Norway, not far from the polar circle, a rock rises 

 in the midst of the waves, more than 900 feet high, which re- 

 sembles a giant cavalier ; hence its name of Hestmanden. 



We see that the rocks which the sea-wave has eaten away are 

 very various in form. Still we may say, as a general rule, that 

 the inequalities of cliffs are in direct proportion to the hardness 

 of the strata. The grooves that the waves slowly hollow out in 

 the surface of the rock, the cavities that they scoop out in it, the ar- 

 cades and grottoes which they excavate there, are the deeper the 

 harder the stone is, for the beds of less solid -formation fall in as soon 

 as the lower layers are eroded. That part of the cliff which is only 

 wetted by the foam and the mist of minute drops is less cut up than 

 the base, and the grooves are less numerous there ; but no vegeta- 

 tion as yet appears. Higher up a few lichens give a tint of greenish 

 gray to the stone. Finally, those bushes which delight in breathing 

 the salt air of the sea make their appearance in the angles and on 

 the cornices of the rocks. It is at 100 or 120 feet high that this vege- 



