176 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
posed of these two strata, rises in some places to nearly two hundred feet. 
Cape Sehanck 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 clilFs 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 simp]}'- 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. Eocks 
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 hi^i 
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 cravrl 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 M ater, 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 ljubbling 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 maj'' be transported and eventually dropped 
on some deep sea-bottom where currents are unknown. Here there are 
oaves large enough to hold a hundred smugglers, and close beyond a natural 
