78 



THE BRITISH ISLES. 



the cllfFs, and into these the waves rusli with great noise. Isolated pinnacles, 

 washed by the ocean's foam, rise beyond the line of clifis, whilst sunken rocks, the 

 remains of ancient promontories, still break the force of the waves, above which 

 they formerly rose. Old chronicles tell us of hills and tracts of coast which have 

 been swallowed up by the sea. Mount St. Michael, in Mount's Bay, rose formerly, 

 like its namesake ofi'the coast of Normandy, in the midst of a wooded plain, which 



Fig. 42. — The "Aumeu Kmohts," neau Land's End, Cornwall. 



has disappeared beneath the waves. The church which crowns its summit is 

 referred to in ancient documents as " Hoar Kirk in the Wood," but the famous 

 Mount is now alternately a peninsula and an island, according to the state of the 

 tide. The wind, more especially along the north coast, has likewise aided in 

 changing the form of the littoral region, for it has piled up dunes, or " towans,"' 

 which travel towards the interior of the country until " fixed " by plantations, or 

 consolidated into sardstone through the agency of the oxide of iron which the 



