32 Origin of the Cheddar Cliffs. 



which it was measured is deserving of notice. A worthy 

 scientific gentleman of the neighbourhood ventured to crawl on 

 to the summit from the grass-covered down behind, until he 

 found himself on the brink of three precipices — those on the 

 right and left perpendicular, the one in front overhanging. He 

 dropped a line from the most extreme part of the brink, which 

 went down without touching rock until the plummit struck a 

 slightly-projecting terrace near the bottom of the ravine, and 

 then fell on the road. There is probably no other part of 

 England where a conformation of cliff- architecture would admit 

 of a similar feat being accomplished. But our wonder at the 

 cool intrepidity of the performer will not be so great when we 

 consider that he was a member of the Society of Friends. 



It has already been hinted that the Cheddar ravine is very 

 tortuous. It consists of an alternating t series of recesses and 

 projections, or small bays and headlands. In some places there 

 is a certain degree of correspondence between the hollows on 

 one side and the protuberances on the other, which might at 

 first lead one to fancy that the ravine is solely or mainly the 

 result of a violent severance of the rocks ; but a little observa- 

 tion will be sufficient to show that the two sides were never in 

 contact. On the right, looking from Cheddar, the cliffs are 

 very precipitous ; on the left, they generally slope down into 

 the ravine at a small angle. 



The cliffs mainly consist of large faces of mo.ss-covered 

 rock, but the clefts and narrow terraces furnish a habitat for 

 various plants, which add beaiity to the sublimity of the 

 scenery. Ivy and yew grow out of the fissures, and in various 

 places may be found liverwort, polypody, meadow-rue, 

 crimson mountain-pink, etc. The "screes"* at the bases of 

 the cliffs have in many places acquired a covering of grass, and 

 do not now appear to be in course of accumulation. The 

 positions they occupy in some places would seem to indicate 

 that they must have been thrown up against a wall of rock, or 

 into a recess, rather than hurled down from above. The effects 

 of the action of frost and rain, however, may be seen in favour- 

 able situations. The frost detaches angular fragments from 

 incoherent parts of the cliffs, and from the under sides of rocky 

 projections. The rain carries previously-detached fragments 

 and chips down the " rakes," or vertical passages which indent 

 the face of the cliffs. Vegetable mould and red loam are like- 

 wise washed down by rain from the top of the cliffs, and sub- 

 jacent fissures. Nearly the whole surface of the Mendip Hills 

 is covered with red loam, which fills up the fissures, and, to a 

 certain extent, the caverns. Its derivation, and period or 



* A convenient name used in the Lake district for the accumulated wrecks of 

 cliffs and declivities. 



