THE EARTH. 



general, the coasts of France, from Brest to Bour- 

 deaux, are composed of rocks, as are also those 

 of Spain and England, which defend the land, 

 and only are interrupted here and there to give 

 an egress to rivers, and to grant the conveniencies 

 of bays and harbours to our shipping. It may 

 be in general remarked, that wlierever the sea is 

 most violent and furious, there the boldest shores, 

 and of the most compact materials, are found to 

 oppose it. There are many shores several hun- 

 dred feet perpendicular, against which the sea, 

 when swollen with tides or storms, rises and beats 

 with inconceivable fury. In the Orkneys,* where 

 the shores are thus formed, it sometimes, when 

 agitated by a storm, rises two hundred feet per- 

 pendicular, and dashes up its spray, together with 

 sand, and other substances that compose its bot- 

 tom, upon land, like showers of rain. 



From hence, therefore, we may conceive how the 

 violence of the sea, and the boldness of the shore, 

 may be said to have made each other. Where 

 the sea meets no obstacles it spreads its water 

 with a gentle intumescence, till all its power is 

 destroyed, by wanting depth to aid the motion. 

 But when its progress is checked in the midst, 

 by the prominence of rocks, or the abrupt eleva- 

 tion of the land, it dashes with all the force of its 

 depth against the obstacle, and forms, by its 

 repeated violence, that abruptness of the shore 

 which confines its impetuosity. Where the sea 

 is extremely deep, or very much vexed by tem- 



* Bufibn, vol. ii. p. 191. 



