45 



CHAP. IV. 



MAKINE CAVES. 



Effects of the Sea on Kocky Shores. — Kngal's Cave. — Beautiful Lines of Sir 

 Walter Scott — The Antro di Nettuno. — The Cave of Hunga — Legend of its 

 Discovery. — Marine Fountains. — The Skerries. — The Souffleur in Mauritius. — 

 The Buffadero on the Mexican Coast. 



Whoevee has only observed the swelling of the tide on the flat 

 coasts of the North Sea, has but a faint idea of the Titanic 

 power which it developes on the rocky shores of the wide ocean. 

 Even in fair weather, the growing flood, oscillating over the 

 boundless expanse of waters, rises in tremendous breakers, so 

 that it is impossible to behold their fury without feeling a con- 

 viction that the hardest rock must ultimately be ground to 

 atoms by such irresistible forces. 



Day after day, year after year, they renew their fierce attacks, 

 and as in the high Alpine valleys the tumultuous torrents rush- 

 ing from the glaciers tear deep furrows in the flanks of the 

 mountains, thus it is here the sea which stamps the seal of its 

 might on the vanquished rocks, corrodes them into fantastic 

 shapes, scoops out wide portals in their projecting promontories, 

 and hollows out deep caverns in their bosoms. 



Here, also, water appears as the beautifying element, deco- 

 rating inanimate nature with picturesque forms, and the sea 

 nowhere exhibits more romantic scenes than on the rocky shores 

 against which her waves have been beating for many a mil- 

 lennium. How manifold the shapes into which the rocky shores 

 are worn ! how numberless the changes which each varying 

 season, nay, every hour of the day with its constant alternations 

 of ebb and flood, of cloud and sunshine, of storm or calm, 

 produces in their physiognomy ! Our coasts abound in beauties 

 such as these ; but pre-eminent above all other specimens of 

 Ocean's fantastic architecture is Fingal's Cave, which may well 

 challenge the world to show its equal. 



