of the famous capes of Britain, a bold headland sloping steeply both
ways, like the roof of a house; whose iron base, fringed with white
quartz pebbles; has been the scene of many shipwrecks, and whose dark
cliffs and rugged crags are haunted by multitudes of sea-birds. The
cliffs of this part of Devon, from the Start round Prawle Point and Bolt
Head to Bolt Tail--cliffs whose grey rock, relieved by bands of white
quartz, has been bent and twisted by volcanic upheaval, and weathered
by rain and frost, by wind and sea, into the wildest and most fantastic
shapes--are as remarkable for picturesqueness of form as other parts
are for richness of colouring. Three miles beyond the Start is Prawle
Point, a magnificent mass of jagged rock, the most southerly point in
the county, and a well-known steering-mark for ships in the Channel. It
was off this shore, in 1793, that the English ship _Nymphe_ captured
the French man-of-war _Cléopatre_; the first naval battle in the
struggle between England and the French Republic. Between Prawle Point
and Bolt Head is Salcombe Mouth, a creek rather than an estuary; a long,
winding, and picturesque inlet, whose entrance is obstructed by a bank
of sand. Trunks of oak and other trees, from a submerged forest not far
from land, are sometimes thrown ashore here after rough weather. To the
west of Salcombe stands Bolt Head, of no great height, but a noble mass
of rugged and weather-worn rock. Beyond the Head the coast rises into
steep and lofty cliffs, culminating in Bolt Tail, close under whose
eastern face, in 1760, the 74-gun ship _Ramillies_ was lost, with more
than 700 of her crew. A gun recovered from the wreck lies by the Hope
signal-station, on the height above. These cliffs have been much broken
away by landslips; and a series of fissures called the Pits suggest that
much more ground is still to fall.
Round Bigbury Bay, of which Bolt Tail is the eastern limit, is some of
the most beautiful scenery of this beautiful coast. A striking feature
of the bay is a great rock called the Thurlestone, an outlying mass of
red sandstone, conspicuous against the general greyness of the cliffs,
and pierced by a lofty archway, worn by wind and sea. Two estuaries,
the Avon Mouth and the Erme Mouth, break the coast-line of the bay; and
there is a third, called Yealm Mouth, near the entrance of Plymouth
Sound, a couple of miles beyond the grand slate headland of Stoke Point.
Outside the Avon Mouth is Borough Island, carpeted in spring-time with
the beautiful blue of the delicate little vernal squill. The Erme,
whose mouth is guarded by rugged cliffs of slate, is strewn with rocks
and sandbanks; but the estuary of the Yealm is a fine sheet of deep,
navigable water. Standing far out into Wembury Bay, at the mouth of
the Yealm, is the third of the Mewstones, a rocky and beautiful little
islet, nearly 200 feet high, and frequented, as its name implies, by
many sea-gulls.
The Mewstone may be said to mark the eastern side of the entrance
of Plymouth Sound, one of the best known, most important, and most
beautiful bays in the kingdom. It is by nature fully exposed to
southerly winds, and it has, in the past, been the scene of many
shipwrecks. But the breakwater, which was built in the early half of
the nineteenth century right across it, two miles south of Plymouth
Hoe, with the special object of sheltering ships of the Royal Navy, now
affords a safe and excellent anchorage. Nearer the shore is Drake's
Island, now strongly fortified, but in Stuart times a State prison,
where Lambert, one of the most distinguished of Parliamentary generals,
spent the last eighteen years of his life.
At the head of the Sound, on its eastern side, is the inlet called
the Catwater, the estuary of the river Plym, an important mercantile
anchorage, protected by Batten breakwater. It was here that the English
Fleet waited until the Spanish Armada, on its way up the Channel, had
passed the entrance of the Sound.
Between the Catwater and the Hamoaze, the great naval anchorage which
extends from the Sound to Saltash Bridge, are the "Three Towns,"
Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport, now joined into one by continuous
buildings, forming the busiest and most populous part of the county,
and constituting, with their dockyards, barracks, gun-wharves, and
victualling yards, one of the most important stations of the Royal Navy.
10. Coastal Gains and Losses. Sandbanks. Lighthouses.
There are parts of our island where, even within historic times, the
coast-line has been greatly changed by the encroachment of the sea,
usually through the wearing away of the cliffs along the shore. This
is especially the case on the eastern coast of England, where, in the
lapse of ages, villages, towns, and whole manors have been completely
swept away. The old town of Ravenspur, for example, a place that in its
time rivalled Hull as a sea-port, is to-day a mere sandbank far out from
shore; and the sea runs twenty feet deep over the once great shipping
town of Dunwich, whose site is now two miles from the land.
On the other hand, there are places where the reverse has happened;
where the shore has gained upon the sea. The town of Yarmouth, for
instance, stands on ground that first became firm enough to build
upon nine hundred years ago. A large tract of land on the coast of
Carnarvonshire has, in times much more recent, been reclaimed from the
sea; and the day cannot be far distant when the mud-flats of the Wash
will be under the plough.
Similar changes--changes resulting both from gain and loss--have
happened and are still happening in Devonshire. Braunton Great Field,
a rich tract of land some 300 acres in extent, cut up into hundreds of
small freeholds, was, it is believed, reclaimed from the estuary of the
Taw. On the other hand, the Pebble Ridge on the shore of Barnstaple Bay
has been slowly driven inland by the force of the sea, and is said to
have advanced 200 yards in the last fifty years, thus covering a long
stretch of pasture-land under heaps of stones. Attempts have been lately
made, by means of piles and groynes of timber, to stop its further
movement.
Much more remarkable, however, and much more widely distributed, are
the alterations that have taken place on the south coast of Devonshire,
owing mainly to erosion of the cliffs and consequent landslips, and
to the washing up, by strong currents, of vast quantities of sand and
shingle. From the Dorset border westwards, especially between Pinhay
Bay and Culverhole Point, in the White Cliff near Seaton, and at Beer
Head, long stretches of cliff, undermined probably by streams and heavy
rains, have fallen, sometimes in masses half a mile long. The old town
of Sidmouth is now buried under the shingle, the cliffs that protected
the harbour having been entirely washed away. At Dawlish, again, rather
more than fifty years since, a mass estimated at 4000 tons fell bodily
into the sea. Nor is the erosion the work of natural forces alone. In
1897 immense quantities of fine shingle were taken from the beach at
Hallsands, to make concrete for Keyham dockyard, with the result that
the beach there has sunk twelve feet, that high-water mark is now much
farther in-shore, and that many houses in the village have been swept
away by the sea, whose further inroads have at last been checked by
means of massive walls of concrete.
[Illustration: A Rough Sea at Ilfracombe]
Most of the south coast estuaries, as has already been pointed out, have
been more or less blocked up by banks of sand or shingle, some of which
are still undergoing change. The Warren, for example, the great bar at
the mouth of the Exe, now connected with the western shore, was in the
seventeenth century joined to the Exmouth side of the river, and was
still reached from there by stepping-stones as late as 1730. The Warren
is now being slowly washed away, at the rate, it is said, of an acre in
a year; and the river has within historic times encroached upon the site
of Newenham Abbey.
Great as has been the loss of land on the south coast, there have
been some gains. More than 170 acres of land, for instance, have
been reclaimed from the Laira near Plymouth; and the village of
Penny-come-quick, lower down, whose anglicised Celtic name means "the
house at the head of the creek," is no longer at the water's edge. In
1805 some thirty acres were recovered from the Charleston marshes, on
the Salcombe estuary.
The Bristol Channel is one of the most stormy and dangerous parts
of the British seas, and is the scene of about one-tenth of all the
shipping disasters that happen on our coasts every year. In its upper
reaches navigation is made difficult by banks of mud and sand which
are continually altering in shape and position. On the north coast of
Devonshire, however, there are no outlying sandbanks. There is a small
patch of sand off Lynmouth, 1-1/2 miles N.N.W. of Countisbury Foreland,
and the estuary of the Taw and Torridge is obstructed by a dangerous and
shifting sandbank known as Barnstaple Bar, upon which ("the harbour bar"
of Kingsley's song), many vessels have been wrecked. But the dangers of
this stormy shore lie mainly in the iron-bound coast itself, and in the
rocks that stretch seaward from the bases of the cliffs. From Bull Point
to Baggy Point, especially off Morte Point, and again from Clovelly to
the border of Cornwall, particularly off Hartland Point, the shore is
fringed with reefs and sharp edges of rock.
Lundy, again, is a constant source of danger to sailors; partly because
of the many rocks that stretch out from it, especially the Hen and
Chickens at the north end and the Lee Rocks at the south; partly because
of the strong currents that, off the south point of the island, run
five knots an hour; and partly because of the fogs that so frequently
envelope it. It was all three clauses combined that, in 1906, occasioned
the loss of the first-class battleship _Montagu_, which, carried out of
her course by the current, and deceived by the fog, became a total wreck
on the Shutter Rock, the southern extremity of the island. Off Lundy,
too, are the only banks of importance. Over the Stanley Bank, which lies
to the north-east, where the depth at one point is only four and a half
fathoms, there run, in heavy weather, the dangerous "tide-rips" known as
the White Horses.
The navigation of the south shore of Devonshire is much more important
than that of the north; partly because of the number of ports in the
county itself, and partly because the English Channel is a much more
crowded waterway.
The principal danger to navigation on the south coast is the group of
reefs called the Eddystone Rocks, fourteen miles south-south-west of
the entrance of Plymouth Sound. They are all covered at high tide,
but the top of one of them is nineteen feet above low-water mark. In
Plymouth Sound itself, especially near the eastern shore, there are many
rocks and shallow patches. The most conspicuous of the former is the
Mewstone, 194 feet high. On the Shagstone, a little farther in, the P.
and O. steamship _Nepaul_ was lost. From this point eastward the coast
is fringed with rocks and small islets, most of them close in-shore. But
from the Start a chain of sandbanks called the Skerries extends out some
miles from the land. From Bigbury Bay to the Start is one of the most
dangerous parts of the coast, and has been the scene of many wrecks.
Here, to name a few of many instances, were lost the _Ramillies_, of
whose crew 708 were drowned; the _Chanteloupe_, when only one man was
saved; the _Marana_, from which seven men escaped; and the _Dryad_, on
which every man perished.
[Illustration: The Eddystone Lighthouse]
From the mouth of the Dart to Hope's Nose there are many outlying
rocks; but from that headland to the Dorsetshire border the coast is
comparatively "clean," that is to say, free from obstructions. All the
rivers east of Plymouth Sound are more or less blocked by bars, with the
exception of the Dart, whose entrance, however, is strewn with rocks.
To warn the sailor against these and other dangers, buoys, bells,
beacons, fog-horns or sirens, guns or explosive signals, and lighthouses
have been provided at many points along the Devonshire coasts. There are
also numerous storm-signalling stations, and there are no fewer than
thirteen lifeboats, of which eight are on the south coast. The men of
the thirty-three Devonshire Coastguard stations have been the means of
saving many lives.
On the two coasts, including Lundy, there are in all fifty-one lights
of various sorts and sizes, from the eight first-class lighthouses with
massive stone towers, of which the most famous although not the most
powerful is the Eddystone, down to the small but useful lights of a
hundred candle-power or less, most of which are connected with quays
and harbours; while others, like that at Clovelly, lighted only in the
fishing-season, are temporary, a number of them consisting merely of
a lantern on the top of a post. A hut that carries the red and white
lights at the mouth of the Barnstaple river is on wheels, and is moved
as the bar shifts its position.
The first Eddystone lighthouse, a fantastic structure of wood, with six
stages, begun in 1690 by Winstanley--who, while engaged in building it,
was carried off by a French privateer, but promptly released by command
of Louis XIV--was swept away, with its builder and three other men, in
the historic storm of 1703. The second lighthouse, also of wood, built
by Rudyerd in 1706, was destroyed by fire in 1755. The third, which
was the first real lighthouse ever erected, was constructed by Smeaton
of stones dovetailed together, with a shaft eighty-seven feet high,
shaped like the trunk of an oak-tree for the sake of strength, and with
the idea that it would offer greater resistance to the waves. It was
finished in 1759, but its woodwork having been burnt in 1770 was then
replaced by stone. The foundations of this tower having been undermined
by the sea, a fourth lighthouse, whose top is 133 feet above high-water
mark, was built by Douglas, between 1878 and 1882, on a rock forty
yards south-south-east of the original site, which is nine miles and a
quarter from the nearest land. Part of the old tower was taken down,
and re-erected on Plymouth Hoe, in memory of Smeaton. Like most of the
Devonshire lights the Eddystone lantern is of the group-flashing order,
giving a light equal to that of nearly 300,000 candles, with two quick
flashes every half-minute, and visible in clear weather for seventeen
miles. A minor fixed light, in the same tower, shines on the Hand Deeps,
a bank to the north-west; and the lighthouse is also provided with an
explosive fog-signal, giving two reports every five minutes.
[Illustration: The Start Lighthouse]
Other very powerful lights, visible for from seventeen to twenty-one
miles, are--giving them in ascending order--those at Hartland, Bull
Point, Countisbury Foreland, North Lundy, the Start, and South Lundy,
the last named being the most brilliant of all, of 374,225 candle-power.
All these lighthouses have fog-sirens or explosive fog-signals.
Most of the English lighthouses are under the charge of the Trinity
House, a corporation founded in 1512, and now having a yearly revenue
of £300,000, derived from "light-dues" levied on shipping. The expense
of keeping up the lighthouses of the United Kingdom in 1909 amounted,
however, to £464,540. The early beacon-lights were simply fires of coal,
and one of these was in use at St Bees Head as recently as 1812. There
are now round the coasts of Britain more than a thousand lighthouses
and lights of various degrees of importance, from those at the Lizard
and at St Catherine's Point, which are the most brilliant in the world,
and may be reckoned in millions of candles, down to insignificant
little structures, of which there are many, like the 100-candle-power
"Jack-in-the-Box" on the river Tees.
11. Climate and Rainfall.
The climate of any country, or in other words, its average weather, by
which, again, we mean its temperature, rainfall, and hours of sunshine,
as well as the dryness or otherwise of its air, depends upon various
circumstances and conditions, but especially upon geographical position,
that is to say, upon the nearness of the country to the equator, upon
its distance from the sea and its height above sea-level; partly
also upon its soil and vegetation. Speaking generally, the nearer we
approach the equator the hotter will be the climate, and the nearer
to the sea-coast the milder and more equable it will be. The highest
temperature in the shade ever yet recorded, however--127° Fahr.--was in
the Algerian Sahara, at a spot not even within the tropics; and the
greatest cold ever experienced, 90° below zero, Fahr., was at a place in
Siberia only just within the arctic circle.
The climate of the British Isles is very greatly influenced by the
great ocean current, often called the Gulf Stream, from its supposed
source in the Gulf of Mexico, which, impelled by steady winds, carries
a constant stream of warm water from the equatorial regions towards the
north pole. This current washes the shores of these islands, and it is
this circumstance which makes our winters so much milder than those of
Labrador, which is no nearer to the pole than we are. Were it not for
the Gulf Stream our weather would probably be more severe than that of
Newfoundland.
The highest shade temperature ever experienced in Britain was 101°
Fahr., at Alton in Hampshire, in July, 1881; and the lowest was
10° below zero, Fahr., at Buxton in Derbyshire, in February, 1895.
A temperature of 23° below zero is said to have been measured in
Berwickshire, in 1879, but the correctness of the record has been
questioned. What is, however, of more importance, is the average
temperature for the year, which, for the whole of England, is 48° Fahr.
The sunniest part of England lies, as might be expected, along the south
coast, although the south-east and south-west coasts also get more
sunshine than inland districts in the same latitude. The sun is above
the horizon in this country for more than 4450 hours in the year; but,
owing to the frequent presence of clouds, he is not visible for even
half that time in any part of the British Isles and the average for the
country as a whole is only 1355 hours. The southern coasts sometimes
enjoy 2000 hours of bright sunshine in a year, but their average is
probably not more than 1700 or 1800 hours, or about five hours a day
all the year round. The amount decreases as we go north; while the
manufacturing districts of the midland counties, owing to the smoke
which so often obscures the sky, get 1200 hours or less. At Manchester
in 1907 only 894 hours of sunshine were recorded for the year's total.
The sunniest months throughout the country generally are May and June,
and the gloomiest month is December.
[Illustration: The Winter Garden at Torquay]
The climate of a country, however, depends not only upon the sunshine,
but upon the rainfall. The amount of rain that falls in any place
varies according to the height of that place above the sea, its distance
from the coast, and the configuration of the ground, that is to say,
upon its position with respect to valleys, up which moisture-laden
air may be driven by the wind, to be compressed and cooled until its
moisture falls in rain.
The rainfall varies very much in different parts of England, but the
average amount for the whole country is about 33 inches in a year. When
we speak of an inch of rain we mean that it would lie an inch deep on a
perfectly level piece of ground. Thus, if all the rain that fell in a
year stayed on the ground, and did not evaporate, or run away, or sink
into the earth, the water would be 33 inches deep all over England at
the end of the twelve months. An inch of rain all over an acre of ground
weighs rather more than 100 tons. Not only does the rainfall vary in
different parts of the country, but it varies in different years. The
wettest year on record was 1903, when the rainfall averaged 50 inches
for the whole of England; and the driest year was 1887, when it amounted
to no more than 24 inches.
The heaviest rainfall in Great Britain is in the mountains round Ben
Nevis and Snowdon, in the English Lake District, and in the uplands of
Cornwall and Devon. And it may fairly accurately be said that, as we
cross England from west to east, the amount of the annual fall steadily
decreases, as is shown in the accompanying map. The moisture-laden
clouds, driven across the Atlantic by the prevalent S.W. winds,
discharge their contents on meeting the cold high lands of western
England, which thus act as a sort of umbrella, the driest parts of
the country being on the east coast. While the average fall over a
considerable part of the west side of it is from 40 to 60 inches, that
on the east is no more than from 25 to 30; and round the Wash and in
parts of Suffolk and Essex it is under 25 inches. Thus it sometimes
happens that when the west of England has rain enough and to spare, the
eastern districts are suffering from the want of it. The effect of this
difference is shown in a marked degree in the character of the crops.
The farms of the rainier west are to a great extent laid down in grass.
The drier districts of the east grow more corn, which needs dry weather
to ripen it.
[Illustration: ENGLAND & WALES ANNUAL RAINFALL (_The figures give the
approximate annual rainfall in inches._)]
The driest month in England generally is March, whose rainfall averages
1·46 inches; and the wettest is October, in which the average amount is
2·81 inches.
The pleasant climate of Devonshire, which is highly conducive to health
and to extreme longevity, and which, especially in the south, favours
luxuriant and even sub-tropical vegetation, owes its character to five
main causes;--the fact that the county is bounded on two sides by the
sea; the influence of the Gulf Stream or warm ocean current, which
directly affects both coasts; the warmth and moisture of the prevailing
winds; the shelter afforded to the southern districts by the high ground
of Dartmoor; and the large amount of bright sunshine which the county,
and especially the south of it, is favoured.
It is owing to the Gulf Stream that the temperature of the sea in the
English Channel is many degrees higher in winter, even as far east as
the Goodwins, than that in the North Sea. Thus, the east wind, blowing
over 200 miles of warmed water, has, by the time it reaches Devonshire,
lost much of its proverbial bitterness. On the other hand it is mainly
owing to the influence of the Gulf Stream that the climate of Ilfracombe
is more equable than that of any other town in England except Falmouth,
and is, in fact, from half a degree to a degree warmer in winter and
cooler in summer than Torquay itself.
[Illustration: Upcott Lane, Bideford]
It is largely the shelter given to it by Dartmoor and the Blackdown
Hills that makes the south and south-east of Devonshire so famous for
its warm and pleasant climate. The south-west also benefits from the
protection afforded by the spurs of Dartmoor, but the rainfall of that
district is heavier and the air more relaxing.
The prevailing winds in Devonshire are the west and south-west, which,
blowing across the open Atlantic, are also the chief rain-carrying
winds. Both are comparatively warm, the latter following the course
of the Gulf Stream. But they are often violent, and vegetation fully
exposed to them does not flourish.
The peninsula of which Devonshire forms a part contains the warmest
districts in Great Britain. The annual average temperature of the whole
county is 49-1/2° Fahr., which is a degree and a half higher than that
of the whole of England; while the average for Torquay is 51°. In the
three winter months, January, February, and March, in which the average
temperature for London is 39·7°, that for Torquay is 41·3°.
The annual amount of bright sunshine in Devonshire naturally varies
in different years. In 1906 it was nearly 2000 hours on the south
coast, and not less than 1800 on the north. The average amount appears,
however, to be about 1700 in the south, and 1500 on the north coast, or
between three and four hours a day. The actual amount would, of course,
be much more than this in summer, and much less in the winter.