KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



81 



THOUGHTS ON THE SEA-SHOEE. 



And thou, vast Ocean, on whose awful face 

 Time's iron feet can print no ruin-trace ; 

 By breezes lull'd, or by the storm-blasts driven, 

 Thy majesty uplifts the mind to Heaven. 



Montgomery. 



ELIEVING THAT EVERY 



thing in Nature lias a voice, 

 we purpose from time to time 

 to ex.amine,with a microscopic 

 eye, whatever strikes us as 

 being of general interest; more 

 particularly those objects 

 which come immediately under our ken. Such 

 is the Sea-shore. 



The beach on which we walk, strewed with 

 pebbles round and smooth almost as marbles, 

 tell of the many ages that must have elapsed 

 since these stones were once a solid rock. 

 One may here trace the first opening crack 

 or fissure between the severing mass and the 

 parent stone ; how from time to time the con- 

 stant but imperceptible flow of the waters 

 widened the opening, till at last the fragment 

 became entirely disconnected. The same con- 

 stant influence, we may suppose, again re- 

 duced it to a smaller piece ; till, by degrees, 

 the ebb and flow of every separate wave 

 rolled it over and over amongst myriads of 

 similar shapeless masses, till at last the sharper 

 angles were removed, and it became a smooth 

 and polished stone — reminding us of the in- 

 fluence of society upon man rubbing off all 

 the sharper angles and asperities of his nature, 

 and transforming the rough schoolboy into 

 the polished man of the world ; and it is well 

 if, in the polishing, some of the more valuable 

 qualities have not been washed away also ! 



Small as these rolling pebbles are, they 

 perhaps offer a greater obstacle to the en- 

 croachments of the sea than the more solid 

 rock, skirting the distant shore, and whose 

 bold and rugged surface tells of the constant 

 action to which we have just alluded ; nay, 

 here and there we find a huge dissevered piece, 

 round which the waters have forced a pas- 

 sage, transforming it into an island, and then 

 gradually lessening in circumference, till the 

 island disappears. We may well imagine 

 that our own happy isle was once a portion 

 of the continent ; for, on looking at a map of 

 England, we see how the Thames on one side, 

 and the Severn on the other, cut deep into 

 our coasts ; and two similar rivers, a little 

 further south, may have formed the com- 

 mencement of the English Channel, where, 

 a passage once gained, the waves of the North- 

 ern Ocean would soon increase its width, till 

 it became as it now appears ; and when we 

 see the changes which even a few years pro- 

 duce on some coasts, we can easily estimate 

 the effects of the continued wash of ages. 



It is very curious to remark how the tide 

 affects a bold, cliffy shore. It first attacks 



the base of the cliffs, every returning tide 

 wearing a little further into its recesses ; till at 

 last the overhanging top preponderates and 

 falls, forming a vast ruin below, which for a 

 time protects the cliff from further injury : 

 till, again removed by the tide, the same 

 process is repeated. Thus we find that on 

 all the softer cliff-bound coasts the ocean is 

 rapidly gaining, much more so than on the 

 flat sandy or pebbly beach. The one, though 

 offering, apparently, so much stronger a bar- 

 rier than the other, is easily sapped at its foun- 

 dation, whilst the sea rolls harmless over the 

 other ; indeed, these latter are often carried 

 by the waves themselves and deposited on the 

 shore, forming for itself the very defence 

 which sets bounds to its domain. 



Many of our rivers and harbours are beset 

 by barriers of this description, which it has 

 taken immense labor and expense to remove. 

 Some, indeed, have baffled all the skill of the 

 engineer ; and when he has perhaps flattered 

 himself that by forming a back water, he has 

 vanquished the obstruction, a strong wind 

 from some particular point has again replaced 

 the bank, and taught him that to contend 

 with Nature is no easy task ; also that the 

 work of years may in a moment be rendered 

 of no use or effect. 



Not a rivulet pours its scanty stream into 

 the ocean which is not engaged in carrying 

 on the process of change ; bringing with it 

 some earthy portion or sediment as its tribute 

 to the sea. Vast tracts of land have thus 

 been formed at the mouths of large rivers, 

 such as the Nile, or Mississippi, where hun- 

 dreds of miles of low, swampy country, have 

 been formed by the deposits from their turbid 

 waters. 



The waters of the ocean yield to very slight 

 impulsions, and are constantly agitated by 

 three different movements — the undulatory 

 or waves, the tides, and currents. 



Waves are produced by the motion of 

 the wind over the surface of the sea ; and 

 when this amounts to no more than a gentle 

 breeze, the undulatory movement passes 

 slowly onward and subsides again ; but when 

 a storm arises, the ocean is furrowed by tre- 

 mendous waves, or mountainous ridges of 

 water, each of which rolls on with furious ra- 

 pidity, until its summit arrives at an over- 

 charging elevation, from which it necessarily 

 precipitates itself by the force of gravity 

 and by the acceleration it has acquired in its 

 descent, impels forward the mass of water 

 immediately before it, which, in its turn, rises, 

 forms a wave, and again repeats the same 

 operation; and thus a continued succession of 

 waves are generated. The swell of the sea 

 caused by a gentle wind, will be sufficient 

 to produce a considerable surf, when it arrives 

 in shallow water ; because the lower part of 

 the wave is checked by first reaching the 



Vol. III.— 6. 



