Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/20

 14 THE CORNWALL COAST some limits, our flora and fauna are absolutely Continental, the limits being even more noticeable as regards Ireland. The extensive coast-line has played a most important part in influencing, national history and characteristics. The greater or less resistance of different rocks and soils has affected not only coast-configurations, but there- with also the very existence and well-being of the inhabitants. The very appearance of Cornwall is eloquent of its granitic structure ; nothing less enduring could have survived the stress to which it is daily exposed. All softer measures have been eroded by the fierce wash of Atlantic seas ; what we may consider a gaunt, bare backbone has stood the test, and the Cornish coast to-day confronts forces that would play havoc with the more yielding and gentle curves of east and south-east England. We know what the narrow seas can do on East- Anglian and Kentish shores ; and the same work of coast- erosion that we there see proceeding before our very eyes must have taken place in Cornwall before the days when historians could note it. The denudations that left our stark Cornish coasts as we know them now for the most part occurred in times that are dim and legendary. We hear of the havoc by an uncertain voice of tradition ; we dream of a lost land of Lyonesse, of which only the Scillies remain ; but the underlying truth of such romantic rumour must be carried back to Neolithic or earlier times. Though inaccurate in detail, such legends are rarely baseless. In places, such as Mount's Bay, there is still evidence of what the sea has taken ; in other parts the evidence has been washed far from sight. The fact that the shallow seas extend far westward cannot be