ON THE LITORAL LABOURS OF THE OCEAN, AND ON SEASIDE SPORTS.
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!
“Britannia needs no bulwark,
No towers along the steep,
Her march is o’er the mountain wave,
Her home is on the deep.”
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!”