176 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



posed of these two strata, rises in some places to nearly two hundred feet. 

 Cape Schanck itself, a projecting tongue of land, is nearly of this altitude, 

 and is surmounted by a lighthouse bearing its name, and towering up- 

 wards for another fifty feet. 



Generally speaking, the cliffs are nearly impracticable for either ascend- 

 ing or descending, but immediately eastward of the Lighthouse Point the 

 basalt suddenly dips, and the bottom of the limestone being but little 

 above the sea-level, a slope is formed, by means of which descent is a 

 matter of but little difficulty ; scrambling down this, the spectator finds 

 himself in a little cove — dry, save during storms from the south-west — and 

 which, from its cindery appearance, might be a sort of vestibule to Tar- 

 tarus. At one place, where the cliffs are most perpendicular, is seen a 

 small opening, which, explored, turns out to be the entrance to a cave, 

 from whose roof depend immense stalactites of fantastic forms. It often 

 happens that caves in volcanic rocks are the result of a fault, consequent 

 on two streams of molten matter meeting and forming an imperfect joint; 

 but the cave under consideration apparently owes its origin to a soft 

 strata of basalt (presently to be alluded to), which being eaten away by 

 successive tempests and the percolation of land-springs, has left the cavity 

 as at present. The stalactites are simply a deposition of lime gathered 

 by water gradually filtering through the limestone stratum by which the 

 cliffs are surmounted hereabout. 



The force of water driven into waves by continued storms may be studied 

 here with great advantage. Looking out from this solitary inlet, as sea 

 after sea comes tumbling in, the scene is grand in the extreme. Rocks 

 such as Martin loved to paint as foregrounds to his pictures, are here seen, 

 alternately white with foam or black as some huge sea-monster shaking his 

 dripping sides above the brine. Nor is the beautiful absent in this seques- 

 tered spot. In sheltered nooks sea-anemones spread out their flower-like 

 tentacles, and troops of tiny, brightly-painted mollusca crawl lazily over the 

 sea-washed boulders. Adown in crystal pools, left by the retreating tide, 

 appears a bottom thickly covered with seaweeds of a hundred hues. 

 Looking at these, one starts, perhaps from their propriety, a body of 

 migratory crabs, who take tremendous " headers " downward into the 

 limpid water, and hide in sore affright mid groves of fucoids. 



Just out at sea, beyond the slanting tongue of limestone by which the 

 descent has been made, stands a solitary pillar of basalt fifty feet in height, 

 and known as the pulpit rock. In these days of iron-clads and cupola- 

 ships, looking at the mass from one point, it is not difficult to associate its 

 peculiar form with that of a huge, half-submerged battery with a single 

 turret. The mass of limestone, too, close adjacent, bears no slight resem- 

 blance to the iron-roofed ' Merrimac' Seen together, these two objects 

 might reasonably be taken for the ' Monitor ' and her famed antagonist, 

 which, meeting in deadly strife, were going down head first beneath the 

 billows. 



Along the whole range of coast from the above spot to Western Head 

 are scattered evidences of phenomena interesting to the geologist. In one 

 spot a spring, after percolating the limestone rock and bubbling out from 

 beneath the foot of the cliff, coats the shingle with calcareous sinter, and 

 forms a conglomerate of basaltic pebbles, shells, and corals ; in another, 

 masses of seaweed drifting ashore with stones entangled in their roots, show 

 how portions of a distant rock may be transported and eventually dropped 

 on some deep sea-bottom where currents are unknown. Here there are 

 caves large enough to hold a hundred smugglers, and close beyond a natural 



