18 THE OPEN BOOK OF NATURE 
looks peaceful and harmless enough, just as it is in 
dry weather ; but you should see it during heavy 
rains, as I saw it that August. On the 20th of the 
month it was no babbling brook, but a mighty 
torrent. It rushed at great speed down its steep and 
rugged course into the sea. Its waters rose rapidly, 
so rapidly that a bridge was in imminent peril. 
Such a churning, whirling, foaming, boiling, toiling, 
and thundering torrent must be seen to be appre- 
ciated. One could see its course in the sea, at 
least half a mile of a clearly defined course of fresh 
water among the salt. As the torrent rushed along, 
it picked up huge boulders and hurled them against 
one another with terrific force and the noise of thun- 
der. It tumbled boulders over and over, urged them 
along, and piled a lot of them up, so that they formed 
a bar where the burn met the sea. The torrent 
rose higher and yet higher, ever urging on more and 
more boulders, and occasionally one could see a 
boulder of big size cannoning against the newly 
formed bar, and literally leaping out of the burn 
into the sea. It was a sublime sight, and one 
never to be forgotten. The burn must have moved 
thousands of tons of material in a few hours, wrested 
it from the land, and hurled it into the sea. 
Not many years ago the same burn carried away 
a bridge, and washed out twelve feet of a bank near 
its mouth, removing hundreds of tons of earth and 
stones in a second or two. There is ample evidence 
that this burn has changed its course several times. 
If you follow its present course up into the hills, you 
will find it descends in beautiful cascades through 
deep ravines, that here and there are big waterfalls, 
