450 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



side all the way from Torquay to the southern extremity of Livermead Sands, 

 excepting only the small portion of it below the Carbons. Not twenty years 

 ago there stood a comfortable cottage in front of Livermead House (o, Tig. 1), 

 outside this wall, with an extensive garden still further seaward ; outside this 

 again was the old road I have mentioned, and still beyond this a broad margin 

 of cliff, where I have frequently seen children, inmates of the cottage, at play. 

 Cliff, road, garden, and cottage' are gone, the sea has swallowed the whole, and 

 well-rounded pebbles now cover a tidal strand, above which they once stood. 

 Nay, more, Neptune too successfully assails the sea-wall every winter; more 

 than once has he been known to have entire possession of the turnpike-road at 

 this point, and to lay claim, with no empty, unmeaning tlireat, to Livermead 

 House itself; and though, hitherto, the engineer has succeeded in expelling 

 him, it has always been at a considerable expense of skill, labour, and money, 

 and, after all, by what may be termed a sort of compromise. _ So continually 

 is the wall undergoing reparation, and so great the quantity of limestone 

 quarried somewhere in the interior for this purpose, that I have frequently 

 thought the contending parties must have come to an arrangement somewhat 

 of this nature : "Neptune agrees not to waste the coast on condition that the 

 engineer shall waste the interior to an almost equal amount, and, further, that 

 if the latter allow the smallest crevice to occur in the sea-wall, the former will 

 feel himself at liberty to take opportunity thereof to re-open his claim on the 

 coast." 



At the southern extremity of Livermead Sands stands a large house (V, Tig. 

 1), known as Livermead Cottage ; it is outside both the turnpike-road and the 

 old road so frequently mentioned ; it beetles over the low red cliff faced by it 

 sea-wall, on which it stands in jeopardy every hour. The sea has several times 

 made abortive attempts to insulate it, but it is in all probability a question of 

 time only. 



A terrace, or platform, of denudation (v w, Fig. 2) extends two hundred and 

 sixty feet from the insular extremity of the Carbons to low-water-mark, the 

 ordinary level of which is indicated by the dotted line w y, as is the level of 

 ordinary spring-tide high-water by the line r d. This terrace may be taken as 

 a rough minimum measure of the amount of the retrocession of the coast here 

 since the sea and land stood at their present relative level ; a minimum cer- 

 tainly, as in this part of the bay the water is very shallow, and a continuation 

 of the platform, constantly covered by the sea, yet within the grinding action 

 of the waves, probably extends at least fully five hundred feet further. 



The following seem to be the successive stages through which the work of 

 erosion commonly passes in Torbay. The sea forms a series of small holes at 

 some little distance from one another near the base of the existing cliff ; most 

 of these, as might be expected, occur where joints or other fissures afford 

 facilities for the operation ; nevertheless, such holes, and not a few, are met 

 witli where no points or lines of weakness of this kind exist; some other pecu- 

 liarity in the rock, for example, the dislodgement of a large pebble from the 

 conglomerate, or some peculiar exposure to the action of the waves, may have 

 determined the situation. When large enough to attract attention, an observer 

 guilty of very absurd comparisons might call them ill-formed, gigantic, unsocial 

 pigeon-holes. A few years at most enlarges them in every direction, and con- 

 vert s them into "ovens," which, in process of time, are in like manner con- 

 verted into chambers and galleries; the latter especially, where pre-existing 

 divisional planes influence the direction of the work of excavation. Lateral 

 enlargement takes place necessarily at the expense of the partitions between 

 the chambers, until a breach is effected and rapidly enlarged in them, and the 

 whole cliff is found to be honeycombed into a labyrinth of halls and galleries, 

 the roof being supported by massive and fantastic pillars. In this state many 

 of them receive the name of " thunder-holes," from the bellowing noise of the 



