CHAPTER IX. He spoke of rocks on England's farthest shore, He mark'd each lofty ridge, and barren moor, Rich in its mineral wealth, tho' poor the cultur'd plain. OLD FRAGMENT. "WHAT have you there, papa?" said Harry, the morning after his father's return. "Is it the coast of some country? But how strangely coloured! What is it intended for ?" "I do not know whether your inquiry refers to the subject, or to the destination of this little drawing. I intend to give it to you, if you are prepared to understand it. Your mother tells me, she has been endeavouring to give you some notion of the arrangement of rocks; and I think it will be interesting to you to know the order and situation in which they actually appear in our own country." "So it would, papa; I wish exceedingly to know more about rocks. I thought, at first, it would be a very dry subject, but mamma showed me that many entertaining things are connected with itmany facts which people may observe for themselves almost any where. Surely this drawing cannot be a correct representation of any natural rocks! I have seen part of the south coast, but nothing like this." "It is not a picture of the rocks on the coast, Harry, or indeed of any rocks, as they are presented to the eye of an observer of prospects. This is a section, not a view. I need not explain the difference to you, because you have often seen sections of houses and machines; indeed, I saw you looking at the section of a lime-kiln this morning." "So I was," interrupted Harry; "and I have seen a real lime-kiln while you were out; it was that which made me look at the section with so much pleasure. It represents a lime-kiln cut right down the middle, and shows plainly how the kiln is built, and how the pieces of chalk or limestone are packed, and exposed to the action of the fire. 1 It is not exactly like the kiln at the chalk-pit, but it gives a very clear idea of the mode of burning lime." See Gray's Operative Chemist, pl. 62. 1 "And will not the real sections of the Earth's surface which you have seen-that of the side of Rook's Hill in the chalk-pit, and the gravel and marly strata exposed in the pits on the common-enable you to understand this drawing, which represents a section cutting down through the surface of the country, in a line extending from the Land's End in Cornwall, to the eastern shore of our island, and terminating near the point where the rivers Stour and Orwell enter the sea?" "Bring it here, my dear Harry," said Mrs. Beaufoy, making room on her work-table; "I should like to look at it, and perhaps papa will explain it to us both." "Though it is divided into four parts," observed Harry, "I see, by the lettering, that it is intended to represent one continued line." "Certainly," replied his father; "and I think you will understand it better if you compare the section of the Land's End with the pretty little map of that district which you showed me when I came home." "1 "The map mamma gave me? I will fetch it directly." He did so; and Mr. Beaufoy drew upon it a line 1 See p. 104. extending from the Land's End to Marazion, and afterwards turning off towards the north-east. He also marked upon the section a slight perpendicular line to the right of St. Michael's Mount. "Here is the first stage of our journey,” said he ; "if you understand this clearly, we shall move on faster afterwards." "I do not wish to go fast, papa; that is, if you are not in a hurry. Will you be so good as to tell me the entertaining things as we go along?" 66 Nay, if I do that, we shall proceed slowly indeed! We are arrested by old legends in the very outset. Beginning at the Land's End, the western extremity of England, you may at once perceive, in those huge masses of granite called the Long Ships' Rocks, indications of the promontory having at some former period extended further out to sea than is the case at present. "We need not wonder at monuments of human art and labour falling to decay, when we see the massive rocks, which seemed formed for eternal duration, bearing the marks of vicissitude and ruin. You know why an apple falls,' Harry; but perhaps you are not aware of the various causes, by the operation of which large fragments of rocks and mountains are so loosened from the mass with |