THE ARCHIPELAGO OF CHAUSEY. 19 



one large island, whose circuit, which is about 

 twenty-one miles, is broken here and there by the 

 indentation of some few and narrow channels. 



It is difficult to conceive anything more desolate 

 than the appearance of certain parts of Chausey, 

 more especially the north-west angle, at low tide. 

 One might also fancy that the islands were the mere 

 debris of some mountain hurled pell-mell into the 

 middle of the ocean. Blocks of every variety of 

 form and size are grouped together in a thousand 

 different ways, some rising into pyramids, others 

 graduated and cut into irregular tiers of steps, others 

 again heaped together into confused masses like the 

 ruins of some giant structure, at one place up- 

 heaved like colossal Druidical stones, at another 

 entangled together like the rude materials of some 

 Cyclopean edifice, or else suspended and so slightly 

 poised, that a breath of air seems sufficient to over- 

 throw them. The first appearance of this frightful 

 picture of chaos leads one to refer the disorder to 

 one of those great convulsions of nature which have 

 upheaved mountain chains and excavated ocean 

 beds. But this conjecture is incorrect ; for the slow 

 but incessant action of atmospheric agents, joined to 

 the reiterated shock of the waves, has sufficed to 

 produce this disarrangement, which moreover exists 

 only on the surface. With a little attention, one 

 may easily discover the regular stratification of the 

 islands below these powerfully-shaken blocks, and 

 we may thus the more readily explain a phenomenon 

 which is of daily recurrence. 



We have seen that the geological framework of 



C 2 



