Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/126

Rh feeble, ever shifting material, the Almighty has curbed the wildest fury of the raging sea, and made its very rage build up its own barrier!

Several mackerel boats were hauled up on the beach, and, while I stood, a party of stalwart fellows in Guernsey frocks and deck boots came running down with rudder and oars, and, launching one of the skiffs, put to sea, for a report prevails that a shoal of Mackerel has been seen in the offing, their first appearance this season. Enormous lobster-pots lay about, to which those used in Weymouth Bay are toys, and a stout rope beset at intervals with great cork-floats, displayed the device by which the position of these cages is marked, and the manner in which they are raised for examination; while just off shore a line of well-boxes was floating, in which the captured Crustaceans are kept prisoners of war, till occasion serves for conveying them to market.

Beyond the village the beach gave way to an ironbound shore, strewn with boulders and fallen masses of stone, vast in dimensions, angular, smooth and white, heaped on each other in wild confusion. The sea washed in among them, passing freely into their interspaces, but not forming pools. Hence very few sea-weeds were growing here, the surfaces of the rocks being ever liable to be laid bare by the dashing of the