VARIED ASPECTS OF THE SHORES. 187 



more at first than the designs traced on the sand often with 

 perfect regularity. Every breaker brings with it shells, pebbles, 

 and other fragments of all kinds and of different sizes. These objects 

 are so many little reefs which divide the wave on its return to the 

 sea, and cause it to trace upon the ground a network of intersecting 

 lines. The surface of the strand presents in consequence an inter- 

 laceing of innumerable lozenges, all ornamented with a shell or pebble 

 at their upper end, and pointed or slightly rounded. All these little 

 lozenges are themselves comprised within large quadrilaterals formed 

 by furrows having, as starting-point, an object of relatively con- 

 siderable dimensions. Contrasts of colours aid in the relief to vary 

 still more this varied aspect of the shore. The differently coloured 

 materials being in general of a different specific weight, are dis- 

 tributed in a regular manner in the various parts of the lozenges. 

 One side of the figure may be formed of small crystals of mica, while 

 another is composed of black sand charged with peat, another of pink 

 or yellowish shells, and the fourth of grains of a pure white. Some- 

 times the sand, impregnated with organic substances, shines like 

 watered-silk, or is slightly iridescent, as if a very thin layer of oil 

 were spread over the ground. 



All these hues modify the aspect of the shores infinitely, and the 

 greater or less inclination of the ground introduces yet a new ele- 

 ment of variety into the network of lines. In all those places where 

 the slope is considerable, the water hollows out the sands in the figure 

 of miniature rivers with their tributaries and deltas. Besides, these 

 small hydrographic systems themselves differ from one another 

 according to the inclination of the ground and the weight of the 

 grains of sand. In one place the sloping ground and the fineness of 

 the displaced materials permit drops and streamlets of water to 

 descend in a straight line towards the sea ; in another the rivulets, 

 making their way with difiiculty between the obstacles that arrest 

 them, flow in winding courses. Elsewhere, watercourses cannot 

 even be formed. The water of the sea remains on a horizontal 

 strand, and all the wavelets reproduce, in hollows or in relief on the 

 sand of the bottom, all the movements which the breath of air im- 

 presses on them. There is no appreciable difference between the 

 varied surface of the shore exposed freely to the wdnd, and that of the 

 sand which a thin watery bed covers, excepting perhaps that the fur- 

 rows of the pool are more regular and deeply hollowed out. 



Among the innumerable phenomena that might keep a geologist all 

 his lifetime on the sea- shore, we must include a kind of miniature 



