NEEDLE ROCKS,
Which stretch out into the sea a considerable distance: they are remains of the original cliff, and forcibly illustrate the destructive power of the ocean's stormy winds and waves, which in successive ages have removed so vast a quantity of the adjacent chalk. Nor are their ravages at all diminished at the present time: for it is only within the last few years that the smallest rock has been completely insulated; while another immense mass of the cliff is evidently separating by degrees, and will probably become ere long entirely detached, forming a magnificent pyramid two or three hundred feet high. It is impossible to convey by verbal description a correct idea of these celebrated rocks: for in passing round or through them, they assume a different shape almost every dozen yards; sometimes appearing like a continuation of the main promontory,—sometimes as one or more lofty acuminated pyramids,—or again we see the different masses extending in nearly a straight line, between which we catch a distant view of Christchurch and other objects on the opposite coast. The name (inappropriate to their present form,) was derived from a spiry rock, 120 feet high and very slender, which fell in the year 1764, having been nearly worn through by the incessant action of the tides: its base however is still visible at low water.
The Pomone, a fifty-gun frigate, was wrecked on the most western of these rocks, on June 11th, 1811, when returning home after an absence of three years; but owing to the fineness of the weather, the crew and passengers, including some Persian princes, reached the shore in safety; and most of her guns and stores were removed before she went to pieces. "The vessel," says Mr. Webster, "afforded me a scale by which to judge of the size of the Needles, and I was surprized to find that the hull of the frigate did not reach one-fourth of their height." The entrance to the Solent Channel "through the Needles" was always considered hazardous for ships of great burthen, not only on account of those rocks, but also of the immense banks of pebbles or "Shingles" that lie to the westward: recent surveys have however ascertained that the channel has sufficient width and depth for the safe passage of the largest ships of war.