ON CORNISH CLIFFS. 209 



whose golden blossom is now interspersed 

 with purple patches of ling or the paler pink 

 flowers of the Cornish heath. Here, then, I 

 can see beauty in nature actually beginning 

 to be. I can trace the origin of all these 

 little bays from small rills which have worn 

 themselves gorge-like valleys through the 

 hard igneous rock, or else from fissures 

 finally giving rise to sea-caves, like the one 

 into which I rowed this morning for my early 

 swim. The waves penetrate for a couple of 

 hundred yards into the bowels of the rock, 

 hemmed in by walls and roof of dark serpen- 

 tine, with its interlacing veins of green and 

 red bearing witness still to its once molten 

 condition ; and at length in most cases they 

 produce a blow-hole at the top, communi- 

 cating with the open air above, either be- 

 cause the fissure there crops up to the surface, 

 or else through the agency of percolation. 

 At last, the roof falls in ; the boulders are 

 carried away by the waves ; and we get a 

 long and narrow cove, still bounded on either 



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