188 POWER OF THE SEA AND WIND. 
petrel round a ship tells the mariner of a forth- 
coming squall, so here the hovering of gulls over 
the water immediately around the cliffs, tells us ofa 
deep-felt commotion in the sea outwards, alarming 
the fish and obliging them to seek the shallow water 
of the bays, (whither the gulls follow them) and that 
anon the storm will rise higher and approach the 
land in its ordinary furious demeanour. 
To cite evidence here of the great power of the 
south-west gales to which we are at times exposed, 
so far as regards their devestating effects on build- 
ings and woods, might appear trifling and vague, 
but there are instances of their power so astounding 
that I deem it not amiss to record four, two of them 
occurring during the frightful gale of 1824, in 
November, a month proverbial with us for its 
storms. On the night of this storm, the conjoined 
action of the sea and wind removed immense mass- 
es of limestone constituting part of the fabric of the 
Breakwater, notorious for the strength displayed in 
the union of its component blocks. These severed 
members “were washed about like pebbles, and 
even carried up the inclined plane of this structure.” 
At South Brent Tor the wind hurled from its sum- 
mit huge stones, precipitating them to its base, and 
scattering them to great distances. In the spring 
of the year 1838, during the occurrence of a spring- 
tide the sea unexpectedly and suddenly rose to an 
elevation of nine feet beyond the highest water-mark 
and did considerable damage ; one similar instance 
alone is within the recollection of our oldest men. 
Both these elevations of the sea were caused by 
violent south-west wind ; in the former case the 
gale extended to our shores, in the latter it confined 
itself to the channel, but drove the sea thus violently 
on our coast. At the mouth of the Erme, a sandbank 
of two or three acres had been for years gradually 
ie 
