us, an evidence of geological change; the floor of a cape that has been washed away, once entirely submerged, and destined, as is supposed, to be again covered by the water. Some of the sand being unusually fine is fetched away in considerable quantities, to be used for brass-castings in the great foundries at Hayle, on the northern coast of the county; and a small deposit of soft sand a little way inland is worked for the same purpose. The Manacles and Chynals Point are well seen from this part of the cliffs; and if you wish a nearer view, a steep, rugged road gives access to the beach. Those are the fatal rocks on which the ship John was wrecked at the beginning of May in the present year, with the loss of more than a hundred lives.

Coverack, two miles farther, has some touches of the picturesque about it, the houses huddled one above another on a point sloping down between two coves: whitewashed walls looking the brighter between weather-stained thatch and weather-beaten cliff.

The road

is a narrow shelf running round the point a considerable height above the sea, from whence you look down on both coves, and the fleet of trim fishing-boats moored to the rude jetty; and far away to the eastward. There is a little mill, scarcely larger than an omnibus, under the hill on the right, the smallest, perhaps, you ever saw, kept jogging by a tiny rill, and delivering but a mere thread of meal. It seemed left to take care of itself, for no one came near while I took a survey of the interior. A man accosted me near the public-house with: "You've made good use of your legs, Sir." I looked inquiringly, when he continued: "Ah! you don't know me with my shore-going hat on ;" and I recognised the old pilot

whom I had seen at Halsands. I expressed my surprise at meeting him again on shore, and pointed to the large ships sailing up channel. "They're all too big for me," he replied; "I can only take sixteen feet;" thereby confessing himself but a second-rate pilot. Six weeks had he been beating about in quest of a ship.

Here I diverged again, and climbed the steep ascent beyond the village to Crousa Downs, where the boulders of diallage are still more numerous than before. From the highest swell you get a glimpse of the lighthouses in the south, and across part of Goonhilly Downs on the west a wide expanse, with scarcely a tree, except here and there a stunted specimen growing on the sheltered side of the forlorn-looking cottages. Cheerless, but vast; and impressive by reason of its vastness. The eye is at times not to be satisfied without free range over apparently limitless space; interrogating the remote. But Crousa Down has especial interest for the geologist; so great is the difficulty to account for its peculiar formation, and for the presence, not far from its centre, of a thick isolated bed of gravel nearly half a mile in width.

Towards the coast once more, and down a wild and stony valley to Kennack Sands, from whence you look back along a frowning range of cliffs to Sparnick and Black Head; the latter appellation fully justified by the sombre aspect of the rugged precipices. Here, again, a jutting mass of rocks divides the space into a double bay, bordered by a considerable extent of sandy beach. The hour was late; and as I crossed the narrow strip left by the brimming tide, the mighty breakers rolled in with a plunge and a roar that sounded almost aawful in the grim solitude. A painful sense of lone

liness stole over me; and more than once I fancied the rushing wave about to overwhelm the whole margin of sand.

"Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me."

The stars were beginning to twinkle: I had, therefore, again to leave the cliffs, and strike the shortest course for a resting-place. Up and down, curving hither and thither, went the track, rougher than was agreeable to weary feet, across the savage valley of Poltesco, and to Ruan Minor, from whence a descending fieldpath brought me to Cadgwith, and most grateful repose at the Star. For supper I had a whiting that had been swimming in the sea but half an hour before my arrival: never till then had I known the true flavour of the fish. It was delicious.

*

Daylight showed me Cadgwith to be a smaller Polperro, shut in by tall cliffs of serpentine. It has a little cove for a harbour, and in the rear a valley, slanting upwards to Ruan, gardens scattered here and there: altogether a pretty and romantic scene. You may walk up the valley and see St. Ruan's Well, a cool and crystal spring, sheltered by an ancient edifice of unhewn stone, with an arched entrance. From its exhaustless basin is taken the water used in the baptismal service in the neighbouring church of St. Grade. Who that has walked far on a hot day does not remember ever afterwards the refreshing draught and temporary halt at such a source? The people I talked to struck me as peculiar; sedate and plodding, as though influenced and toned by the nature that surrounds them. You soon discover that, in common with other Cornish

folk, they entertain a pretty good conceit of themselves. They are rather fond of Scripture names, as may be seen on tombstones, over shop-windows, and heard in the calls of mothers to their children: "You coom along here, Judith!" Zenobia is not uncommon.

Or you may mount to the flagstaff on the eastern bluff, where some of the best serpentine is found, and see the quarrying of the stone. Choice morsels are to be picked up among the chippings, or you may buy them ready polished from the coast-guard men, who employ their leisure in working up the rarer specimens. Where newly-exposed, the mass has a singularly beautiful appearance, its multitudinous veins and markings, appropriately likened to those of the serpent, producing a surface of infinite variety; and you will perhaps think it ought to be more used than it now is in decorative architecture. One of its constituents is turned to good account by the chemists of Bristol, who get carbonate of magnesia out of the many tons of serpentine which they import every year from the Lizard. It is to the magnesia the remarkable barrenness of soil is due wherever this rock is present; though so favourable to the growth of the white heath. Steatite appears in different parts of the quarry in veins and patches, feeling soft and soapy to the touch; whence its popular name, soap-stone. While here on the summit, go on to Ynys Head, about a mile to the east: it is a grand cliff walk, along which you may gather a few rare plants and wild asparagus in abundance.

A sudden change came over the weather; and when I left Cadgwith, and mounted to

"Yon rough crag,

Where the wild tamarisk whistles to the blast,"

I encountered half a gale of wind, which brought up a thick, misty rain, and drove it horizontally across the country, making the landscape look drearier than ever. The tamarisk hedges which shelter the homestead near the top appear to thrive, notwithstanding the shock of the breezes. How their slender, thong-like branches streamed out, dripping on the wind! Beyond one of these hedges is the chasm which bears the portentous name-the Devil's Frying-Pan. And here I may remark, by the way, that Cornwall, above all other counties, appears to be the one most subjected in times past to visitations of the Evil One. Not a shire in the kingdom but has traditions and memorials of his wicked pranks; but here he has left traces of his power and wanton mischief in every parish. Happily the times are not what they were; and now, so runs the proverb, he "will not come into Cornwall, for fear of being put into a pie."

To return, however, to the Frying-Pan. It is an irregular, crater-like hollow, nearly two acres in extent, two hundred feet deep, converging to an orifice at the bottom of some sixty feet diameter. Around the upper edge, and half-way down the slope, ferns, gorse, and grasses grow in profusion, here and there a tamarisk, and masses of stone peeping through; but below, you see the bare rock, and at high water the sea playing in the cavern beneath. How was it formed? is a question that immediately occurs to the mind. The explanation is, that the sea, having eaten away the beds of hornblende and lodes of steatite here imbedded in the serpentine, a cavern was gradually formed, wider and higher as the wearing action went on, till the roof, becoming too weak to bear the superincumbent weight,