THE BAY OF BISCAY. 163 



solid kind have been thrown down, and their complete 

 destruction by the storms of 1822 appears definitely 

 to prove the inutility of all further attempts. In the 

 hope of opposing the advance of the waves, M. de 

 Baudres improved upon the works of his predecessors, 

 and in the additions which he made to the former 

 embankments he appears to have exhausted all the 

 resources of engineering art. A dyke of earthwork 

 was erected on the embankments formed by the sea 

 itself, and strengthened in the interior by massive sup- 

 ports of masonry. With a view of offering the greatest 

 opposition to the force of the waves, its exterior was 

 covered by a steeply inclined wall of a yard in thick- 

 ness, composed of large blocks of freestone. Enormous 

 masses of rock bound down by three tiers of deeply 

 sunken piles protected the base of the dyke, and yet 

 in the course of a few days the piles were all torn 

 up, the pieces of rock washed away, and the whole 

 so entirely destroyed, that after the tempest there 

 remained not a single vestige of the embankment for 

 a length of more than 140 yards.* The ocean had 

 passed its levelling touch over the whole of the ruins 

 which it had made, and entombed them in a bed of sand. 

 A new pier has now replaced those which the sea 

 had destroyed, but we scarcely dare to hope that it will 

 be able to afford better resistance than its predeces- 

 sors. The sand has already begun to accumulate at 

 its base, and with every storm of wind the waves 

 pass over it, and break into the town, carrying masses 

 of sand and gravel with them through the streets. 



* Nouveau Cours clementaire de Geologic, by M. J.-J.-N. Huot. 

 M 2 



