INFLUENCE OF THE SEA. 



139 



together, that a person may almost leap from one 

 side to the other. The marble is of the whitest 

 and most beautiful description, and, from the action 

 of the water, appears as smooth as if it had been 

 highly polished. On each side of the stream are 

 several " pot-holes," as they are called, of several 

 feet in depth, each containing one or more stones, 

 the constant motion of which by the water doubt- 

 less caused these phenomena. 



Influence of the sea upon the land.—^lf we wish to 

 see, upon a large scale, the action of water in wear- 

 ing down the surface of the earth, we have only to 

 direct our attention to the influence of the sea upon 

 the coasts which bound it. The immense power 

 exerted by the beating waves may be estimated in 

 some degree by a few facts. " The Isle of Sten- 

 ness," says Dr. Hibbert, " presents a scene of 

 unequalled desolation. In stormy winters, huge 

 blocks of stones are overturned, or are removed 

 from their native beds and hurried up a slight ac- 

 clivity to a distance almost incredible. In the win- 

 ter of 1802, a tabular-shaped mass, eight feet two 

 inches by seven feet and five feet one inch thick, 

 was dislodged from its bed and removed to a dis- 

 tance of from 80 to 90 feet. I measured the recent 

 bed from which a block had been carried away the 

 preceding winter (1818), and found it to be 17 1-2 

 feet by seven feet, the depth two feet eight inches. 

 The removed mass had been borne to a distance of 

 30 feet, when it was shivered into thirteen or more 

 lesser fragments, some of which were carried 120 

 feet farther. A block nine feet two inches by six 

 feet and a half, and four feet thick, was hurried up 

 the acclivity to a distance of 150 feet." 



Mr. Lyell states, that in building the Bell Rock 

 Lighthouse, off the mouth of the Tay, in Scotland, in 

 1837, where the water is about 16 feet deep, six 

 large blocks of granite which had been landed on 

 the reef were removed by the force of the sea, and 



