The more I consider the various phenomena occurring from time to time on the dry land, and the more opportunity I have of observing for myself simple facts in geology, the more I am struck at once with the truthfulness and the unexpectedness—if I may use such a word—of the assertion which Moses makes in the 1st chapter of Genesis, that the appearance of the “dry land” was due to “the gathering together of the waters unto one place.”

The assertion has an unexpected (À priori) character; for continents and tracts of dry land do not, on the face of them, suggest the idea of any recent presence of incumbent masses of salt water—perhaps miles in depth. But it is eminently truthful, for it is a key to many an abstruse problem in Nature, and a confirmation of every sound and enlarged view of the past history of this globe.

The ocean has been busily at work—in old times, inland; in later times, coastwise; in all times subterraneously. This last point is proved by the volcanoes, and that in a twofold argument. Such volcanoes as are now extinct, are so because they have lost all communication with the sea; such of them as are active, are so because they draw supplies of salt-water from the nearest part of the ocean, and this they can only do subterraneously.

But in speaking of the labours of the ocean, I shall confine myself to the seashore, as the scope of this little volume does not go beyond that region. The point where sea and land meet is the critical point for all observers of Nature. Here the disciple of geology should serve his apprenticeship, and if he cannot accumulate facts, and glean a kind of inspiration here, he cannot do so anywhere. Moreover here, better, we think, than in any inland scenery, Man can muse and meditate. That ever-varying curved line of moisture on the shore depicts the fluctuating changes which momentarily visit his “little day;” the tide running in is the flood of his early life; the tide running out is the ebb of his declining years; the vast sweep of the coast, backed by the upland ranges and everlasting hills, and itself only lost to sight in the far horizon, tells of a steadfast future, an immutable eternity.

Above all, those who desire to note epochs in the flight of Time, and to set up way-marks in the Earth’s chronology, must study the line of the sea-coast, the ancient and the modern, for here, if anywhere, the dial-plate is uncovered, and the shadow of the gnomon may be traced through some seconds of the enormous day which has witnessed the existence of the heavens and the earth.

I have already, in my opening chapter, remarked how the sea brings down, in the course of ages, many a pebbly beach from cliff and causeway. But I am far from assuming, therefore, that all the pebbles of a beach come from the land. The usual bottom of the sea is, indeed, no pebbly shore; but there are many submerged rocks of sandstone and oolite, out of whose ribs and crevices, from time to time, fossils may be washed, just as our own chalk-cliffs, the main resort of the siliceous pebbles, were themselves laid down in deep seas. And the salt water, which is always acting gradually to dissolve certain rocks, when it removes portions of these from the edges and promontories, will occasionally bring their contents to shore. But these results, although interesting to those who maybe searching after pebbles (and a deep-sea pebble is a prize), were not what I pointed at when I spoke of the labours of the ocean.

I have frequently walked the shore, and observed the colour of the waves, after what is termed a “ground swell,” which had lasted, perhaps, for thirty or forty hours. The cerulean hue is then gone, and to it has succeeded, in certain localities, an opaque chalky tinge, showing that the water is now heavily charged with lime. Also fragments of shells rolled together are united with heavy masses of sand, and sometimes of broken pumice-stone, and a kind of rough marl is rapidly formed, and left on the beach. After a gale, and succeeding “swell,” I have met with these imperfect boulders, varying in size from that of a man’s fist to some larger than his head. At the same time, any low ranges of littoral rocks become crusted over with the superabundant lime, being more than the waves will long hold in solution; and a coating is thus given to such rocks which is sometimes as hard as is the native limestone itself, a few weeks’ exposure to the sun and air sufficing to effect this.

Some fourteen years ago, I had an opportunity, when in Sicily, of examining a portion of the coast between Messina and Catania, and I regret that I did not avail myself of it more heartily. But I have seen M. Quatrefage’s book on this subject, and his observations, most carefully and laboriously conducted, may almost be said to close that part of the subject, as far as any prospect of eliciting fresh information is concerned. I think he measured some of the long reefs, and the evident increase by incrustation extended for many miles of the coast-line, and was of considerable thickness. I have observed the same “masonic” phenomenon off the coast of St. Andrews, in Fifeshire, when swimming out among the weedy rocks, and afterwards climbing to the shore. I then thought it was the work of marine insects, as I had heard of molluscs building causeways of tubes of limestone, but I incline now to think it was the sea doing it, as they say, at first-hand. The sea, however, does a great deal in the same line at second-hand, by means, chiefly, of two species of zoanthoid polyps. Of these little creatures, one kind constructs the bases of coral islands, and another the summits (at the least) of the madrepore reefs. It is impossible to doubt that by labours so patiently carried on, and so widely diffused, some beneficent purpose is aimed at and attained by Providence. Perhaps they operate, finally, to warn the shipping of adventurous merchants from entering certain dangerous bays and straits; and if the humble madrepore has got a bad name through this, as though he had made the danger, he certainly suffers unjustly, for what real difference, as to ultimate and assured safety, can a few inches more of water in such places make? Far better to raise an impassable bar across the way at once, and proclaim, “no thoroughfare!”

Then the ocean supplies a great market, much the greatest in the world. I do not know the proportion of persons in Central Europe who live on fish to those who live on meat, but I think, in both Northern and Southern Europe, the former exceed the latter. In Connemara, on the western coast of Ireland, and in the Scotch highlands of Argyle and Inverness, fish is decidedly the staple article of diet, as far as animal food is concerned. I believe the same is true of Cornwall and part of Devon. The herring, the pilchard, the haddock, the cod, and the salmon—to say nothing of the sole and other flat-fish—feed millions of persons, and, with the help of oatmeal, barley-cakes, and (in a good year) potatoes, feed them well. Shell-fish are also no mean item, and are sometimes the most refreshing of all dishes, especially at the supper-table. Now the sea, it must be remembered, does all this for man without harrowing, ploughing, or sowing. The fisherman’s net may be said to reap, that is all.

Again, if jewels be of any real value, what is the value (among such) of a collar of faultless pearls? what is there among minerals, so pure, so exquisitely beautiful, whether we regard their tint or their form? These are the spontaneous production of a humble shell-fish; some say, an offering from the creature when he has been wounded. If so, men may here learn a lesson in kind, and return good for evil to those who persecute them.

Again, the ocean is our defence: long may it prove so!

No doubt, since man is a creature who lives upon the dry land, the land is on the whole the most valuable; but what would the land be without the sea? Nay, to go no further, how could we exist in summer and autumn, if deprived of the sea-breezes? For myself, though naturally fond of field-sports, and delighting in botanical and entomological pursuits, I know of no treat equal to that of a seaside ramble in the month, say, of September or October.

Now let us consider how very little mischief the ocean does us. Much fewer people die of what are called “casualties” by sea, than of those by land. The truth is, we always hear of such as are lost at sea, because of the loss of the ship, which involves a question of insurance-money; but of deaths inland, especially in far countries, and if belonging to strange peoples or savage tribes, we perchance scarce hear at all. YEH, the Chinese Commissioner, killed, it was said, 70,000 persons in the course of his brief career, for political reasons. How long would it take for 70,000 persons to perish by storms or accidents at sea, in the usual course of things, in one small part of the globe?

A wreck, it must be allowed, is a terrible thing; but so is a house on fire, or a flood up the country.

The sea, moreover, labours to help the land in other ways, some of them singular enough. Many thousands of poor unproductive acres have, in these last ten years, been rendered rich and fertile by supplies of GUANO. And whence did we get the guano? why, from the sea-fowl, and from a barren rock in the bosom of the seas! This is no trifling benefit to reap from the “desert sea.”

What a beautiful thing is glass, and how indispensable it has become to us! Perhaps no other material can be insured to be perfectly clean and pure for drinking out of. For many years our glass-works depended mainly upon a constant supply of kelp from the Orkneys, and even now they cannot dispense with the sea-sand.

The porcelain mills in Staffordshire and elsewhere are very glad to obtain a cartload of pebbles from the beach. These go to the “crushing” department; and if among them there are, as there are pretty sure to be, a dozen lumps of chalcedony, the material of the next batch of teacups will be unusually fine, provided some one who understands them picks the stones first. Indeed, if I had no preferable occupation in this world, I have often thought I would collect the rough agates and chalcedonies from sundry localities I wot of, and fabricate a biscuit of my own, as the king of Saxony does at Meissen. But though I have not the leisure for this, others may have; and so I mention it here.

Especially I incline to think that a splendid kind of “Wedgewood” ware would result from the crushing of certain jaspers, for I suppose their colours would not fade in the furnace.

Then, the seaside visit, I must not omit to mention, can be enlivened by sundry local pursuits and amusements. Besides the pleasures of a sailing-boat, and a run with the “dredge” and the “dipping-net,” there is the exciting march of the Shrimper, knee-deep in the wave, pushing the hoop-net before him, and every now and then halting to fill his front pocket with the silvery jumpers. If there are rocks near at hand, there will be lobster-pots to visit; and the habits and deportment of a live lobster are among the most curious in creation. In agility and cunning he surpasses even a salmon. Also, for the benefit of those who at all regard what they eat—and he who disregards it is a goose—I may just venture to hint that a real lobster-salad (London confectioners have a way of selling sham ones,) is a dish worthy their serious attention: Barclay’s stout being not a bad accompaniment.

But the above will sound to some persons too “Epicurean.” O gentle reader, do you love moonlight? and if you have ever admired the reflection of that planet in a lake or river, what will you say to it when you contemplate it in Sandown Bay? Culver on one side, looking as if it were of green glass, and the cliffs of Shanklin on the other resembling walls and pillars of porphyry! Or is your taste for the sterner beauty of storms and angry seas? Then visit Blackgang Chine late in winter, and you may “sup full of horrors.” The appearance of the waves below, as they come in over that fatal “race,” and the aspect of the earth and the heavens above, when the lightning darts from “St. Catherine’s head” and sweeps like a destroying Angel down the chasm of the Chine, yield together perhaps the grandest picture of desolation and terror that English scenery ever shows.

There are persons still living who are unwilling to speak of the fearful tempest they witnessed on that coast when the Clarendon was lost.

Lastly, to return to our “pebbles,” the sea is an indefatigable agent in the partly mechanical, partly chemical, work of infiltration; a process to which both the fine texture and varied colours of these agatized fossils are mainly due.

But of this I must treat in the chapter which follows.

Enough, for the present, of the ocean itself—of its labours and its sports. But, as some readers love a comparison, and hold that every theme grows dull without this, I will quote from the lips of a great traveller, whom it was once my luck to meet, his opinion of the rival claims of the Desert, to that admiration which we islanders lavish on the heaving Ocean and the winding Shore. I cannot pretend to remember his very words; but he was eloquent as the son of Laertes, and he made me long to visit the East. He said that the Desert was “another world,” more marvellous than this of our land and sea: it was a home and a domain, like the former; yet was it waste and boundless as the latter. I asked about the sands. “Vast, beyond computation.” “And the material?” “Powdered quartz, all of it. Quartz mountains, crushed, and pulverized, and sifted!” The reddish hue is from the peroxide of iron. No particle of anything like organized matter has ever been detected in its composition. The caravan-camels which drop and die daily on their hot march, as they have done for centuries, leave their skeletons, after the vulture’s inquest is over, to bleach upon the surface; and, in the course of a season or two, these bones must turn to an impalpable powder: but that does not mix with the sand, or phosphate of lime would at once be found on analyzing it.

Then he spoke of the sunrise, and the glowing sunset; and of the delicious hours of night; and of tent-life in the Desert; and of wandering Arabs, who revere the grave and silent man; and of the charms of an encampment in some green “oasis;” and then, strongest commendation of all, he said, “I am going back, among the children of the Desert!”