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FLAMBOROUGH HEAD. 



Rev. W. C. HEY, M.A., 

 St. Ola-tie's Vicarage, York; President of the Conchological Section of the Yorkshire 

 Natiiralists' Union. 



The Flamborough Head of sunny August is familiar to thousands of 

 visitors. They love to loiter on its breezy cliffs, to peer into the 

 long recesses of its shadowy caves, or simply to sit and gaze on the 

 rich tints of emerald and purple which are so eminently characteristic 

 of these pure waters, where the foam of the breaking waves vies in 

 whiteness with the snowy front of the chalk cliff. On the other 

 hand, the Flamborough Head of the storm is a thing shunned and 

 solitary. The ships that almost grazed the cliff where in summer the 

 water lay calm and deep, are hiding themselves now from their 

 notorious foe in the safe recess of Bridlington Bay. Not a solitary 

 figure walks the cliff, and only in some lonely cove may you perchance 

 descry a fisherman, watching the waves for wreckage — for this raging 

 sea often casts up strange things upon the beach, like trophies of her 

 victorious prowess. 



Let us face the cutting wind and the blinding rain, and descend 

 towards the Great Thornwick, a cove where the north-west gale hurls 

 the sea against the cliffs with terrific violence. Long before we come 

 in view of the waves, foam flakes are blown into our faces, and in 

 some spots the grass is so thickly strewn with them that one might 

 fancy snow lay on the ground. As the bay opens before us, a strange 

 chorus of different sounds bursts upon the ear. We can distinguish 

 a constant sullen roar that never ceases — the perpetual breaking of 

 the waves among the rocks at the foot of the cliff. Frequently, a 

 horrible grating noise is heard, that seems to come from the very 

 bowels of the sea. It is the reflux of ther waves carrying back a mass 

 of great rounded stones, and sounds like the death-rattle of some 

 grim sea monster. Now and again, a grand boom appals the ear as 

 some billow of extravagant dimensions has dashed down its • whole 

 bulk in one colossal cataract. Anon, we notice strange seething noises 

 in narrow gullies, where the water has been churned and churned till 

 it is simply a mass of creamy foam, while from the network of caves 

 hat perforates the cliff, thud and bang and splash, with their echoes, 

 maintain a perpetual and awful concert. 



It is under such circumstances that two features of the Head, 

 little observed in fine weather, come into prominence, the "blow- 

 holes" and the "creux." The blowhole of Kynance Cove, in 



June 1886. m 



