Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/171

130 A little way beyond Church Hope, going southward, there is a vast chasm, produced by some convulsion of nature prior to all tradition. Its general course is straight, and parallel with the coast; running perhaps a quarter of a mile in length, and thirty yards in average width (I speak conjecturally, for I had no means of measuring it); the stone sides rising perpendicularly, exactly like walls, with the stratification imitating courses of regular masonry, but of cyclopean dimensions. Long brambles, shooting from the fissures, spread in patches, which assist the glossy ivy to throw a graceful drapery over the walls of this yawning gulf; and the suspicious blackbird that shot out of her nest at my approach, and the lesser birds that hopped about, shewed that, however awful the scene appeared to me, it was not without its charms for these gentle denizens.

I was struck with the resemblance which this phenomenon bears to a chasm in Lundy, that I have elsewhere described. No doubt in each case the effect was produced by the partial separation and recession of a slice (if I may use so undignified a term) of the precipice, which, instead of proceeding to a fall, which would simply have opened a new line of the coast-edge, became, from some hindering cause, prematurely arrested midway, and has remained so fixed. This is not the only instance which I remarked of parallelism to Lundy in phenomena; though the geological formation of that rocky islet is very different, being granite.

At length I approached the southern extremity of the isle, passing through another village called