A man must for years examine for himself great piles of
superimposed strata, and watch the sea at work grinding down old rocks
and making fresh sediment, before he can hope to comprehend anything
of the lapse of time, the monuments of which we see around us.
It is good to wander along lines of sea-coast, when formed of
moderately hard rocks, and mark the process of degradation. The tides
in most cases reach the cliffs only for a short time twice a day, and
the waves eat into them only when they are charged with sand or
pebbles; for there is reason to believe that pure water can effect
little or nothing in wearing away rock. At last the base of the cliff
is undermined, huge fragments fall down, and these remaining fixed,
have to be worn away, atom by atom, until reduced in size they can be
rolled about by the waves, and then are more quickly ground into
pebbles, sand, or mud. But how often do we see along the bases of
retreating cliffs rounded boulders, all thickly clothed by marine
productions, showing how little they are abraded and how seldom they
are rolled about! Moreover, if we follow for a few miles any line of
rocky cliff, which is undergoing degradation, we find that it is only
here and there, along a short length or round a promontory, that the
cliffs are at the present time suffering. The appearance of the
surface and the vegetation show that elsewhere years have elapsed
since the waters washed their base.
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