58 AN EXCUSABLE FAULT. 



sigmoid curve, the tips bending upward. It waves 

 them now and then, hut not much ; and remains long 

 without moving from its hold. Though I repeatedly 

 took it out of water, removing it forcibly, it manifested 

 no tendency to voluntary dislocation. 



WATCOMBE. 



One of the most wildly romantic scenes in this 

 neighbourhood is Watcombe, about a mile from 

 Marychurch, on the Teignmouth road. A narrow 

 lane, muddy from a little streamlet that oozes down 

 it, but fringed with primroses and violets, leads off 

 from the highway on the right, and presently opens a 

 magnificent prospect of the sea, with a handsome 

 villa just in front in the midst of ornamental grounds. 

 A step or two farther, and we are on a large area of 

 broken ground, most irregular and uneven, but covered 

 with the fine close turf, peculiar to downs, on which 

 the sheep are tranquilly grazing. On the left, rise 

 abruptly from the turf, perpendicular cliffs of red 

 sand-stone of stupendous height, their summits cloth- 

 ed with turf and thickets of furze ; so angular and 

 uniform are they that they look like the ruined 

 walls of some Cyclopean castle. The place is formed 

 by wdiat geologists call o. fault, the ground having at 

 some period fallen in from the higher to the lower 

 level, a catastrophe which explains the uneven cha- 

 racter of the down, the hills and vales, the chasms 

 and pits, that are so remarkable here. 



The fault, — which is certainly one that we cannot 

 very harshly blame, since its effect is so beautiful, — 



