A SUMMER TJIIP. 73 



order to say they have been to a place which hardly 

 anybody else has been to before. But from the point 

 of view of the geologist and naturalist Lundy and the 

 Holms are full of interest. For if, as seems probable, 

 the Bristol Channel was at no very remote period a 

 broad and open plain, like that of the Gironde, through 

 which the Severn made its way into the Atlantic some- 

 where off the south coast of Ireland, then these three 

 petty islands are solitary remains of the submerged 

 lands little hills which have survived the general sub- 

 sidence, as Glastonbury Tor might survive if the water 

 were to break over the Somersetshire marshes, or as 

 Primrose Hill might survive if the valley of the Thames 

 were to sink some fifty feet below the sea. 



We know that the warmth and the sea air have kept 

 a great many south European plants and animals alive 

 in the south-western peninsulas of England and Ireland 

 long after they have been killed out in the colder regions 

 of the north and east ; and in these little islets of the 

 south-west coast the insular conditions of heat, equable 

 temperature, and moisture prevail in the highest degree. 

 Everybody has heard of the sub tropical vegetation of 

 palms and aloes, which flourishes in the open air at 

 Tresco Abbey, in the Scilly Isles ; and all the insular or 

 peninsular portions of the shore exposed to the full flow 

 of the Gulf Stream are almost equally peculiar in the 

 southern character of their native flora. Thus in the 

 rocky clefts of the Steep Holm the deep red blossoms of 

 the true peony may still be seen profusely in May and 

 June, while it is found wild nowhere else in Europe 

 nearer than the Pyrenees ; and on Lundy the wild 

 asparagus covers the granite of the shore in many places, 

 though now almost extinct elsewhere in Great Britain, 

 save perhaps at Asparagus Island in Kynance Cove near 



