42 



Some authors delight in describing the sea as 

 throwing its breakers loaded with stones and shingle 

 against cliffs, and thus wearing down even the 

 hardest rocks. The idea of " nature's artillery " 

 battering down a cliff may be very poetical, but it 

 involves a misconception as to fact. The whole of the 

 west coast of Ireland is open to the full force of the 

 Atlantic waves, which often rise hundreds, of feet; 

 " blue water " having on one occasion carried away 

 the water tanks at the upper lighthouse on the Great 

 Skellig, which, according to the ordnance map, is 380 

 feet above mean tide level ; 1 while spray has been 

 driven clean over the island of Valencia, so as to wet 

 the windows in Knightstown ; the cliff at the west 

 of the island being from 500 to 700 feet high ; yet 

 in no place on the west Irish coast did we remark 

 this "battering ram" process going on. On the 

 contrary, in those places most exposed to the waves, 

 the seaweeds usually grow luxuriantly, clothing 

 these rocks with a mantle. Abrasion by the sea will 

 take place in cooses, guts, and the like, but this is 

 due principally to the " back-wash." Stones when 

 carried in by the waves fall on a cushion of water, 

 and the force of the fall is broken ; but as the waves 

 retreat, they roll in the back-wash, over and against 



1 It is remarkable what a height " blue water " will rise on sea rocks, 

 and against cliffs. A wave of the height here quoted, and of sufficient 

 magnitude, if it came in on most parts of the coast of Ireland, would be 

 higher than three quarters of the island. 



