A melancholy fate overtook a large family party near here some years ago. They had walked over the sands to Fern Cliff, and made their picnic in a cavern close by, forgetful of the silent march of the tide. When they discovered their isolation escape was cut off, and the overhanging rock forbade all chance of climbing. They were all drowned, and the bodies picked up one by one, as the sea washed them in.
All the species of anemone found on the rocks above the water are to be seen below it, and all displaying their beauties in an incomparably more charming fashion. The whole submerged wall is nothing else than a parterre of most brilliant flowers, taken bodily and set on end. “The eye is bewildered with their number and variety, and knows not which to look at first. Here are the rosy anemones (Sagartia rosea), with a firm fleshy column of rich sienna-brown, paler towards the base, and with the upper part studded with indistinct spots, marking the situation of certain organs which have an adhesive power. The disc is of a pale neutral tint, with a crimson mouth in the centre, and a circumference of crowded tentacles of the most lovely rose-purple, the rich hue of that lovely flower that bears the name of General Jacqueminot. In those specimens that are most widely opened this tentacular fringe forms a blossom whose petals overhang the concealed column, expanding to the width of an inch or more; but there are others in which the expansion is less complete in different degrees, and these all give distinct phases of loveliness. We find a few among the rest which, with the characteristically-coloured tentacles, have the column and disc of a creamy white; and one in which the disc is of a brilliant orange, inclining to scarlet. Most lovely little creatures are they all! Commingling with these charming roses there are others which attain a larger size, occurring in even greater abundance. They are frequently an inch and a half in diameter when expanded, and some are even larger than this. You may know them at once by observing that the outer row of tentacles, and occasionally also some of the others, are of a scarlet hue, which, when examined minutely, is seen to be produced by a sort of core of that rich hue pervading the pellucid tentacle. The species is commonly known as the scarlet-fringed anemone (Sagartia miniata). The inner rows of tentacles, which individually are larger than those of the outer rows, are pale, marked at the base with strong bars of black. The disc is very variable in hue, but the column is for the most part of the same rich brown as we saw in the rosy. Yet, though these are characteristic colours, there are specimens which diverge exceedingly from them, and some approach so near the roses as to be scarcely distinguishable from them.” The loveliness of these submarine gardens cannot be over-rated.
CHAPTER XVIII.
By the Sea-shore (continued).
A Submerged Forest—Grandeur of Devonshire Cliffs—Castellated Walls—A Natural Palace—Collection of Sea-weeds—The Title a Miserable Misnomer—The Bladder Wrack—Practical Uses—The Harvest-time for Collectors—The Huge Laminaria—Good for Knife-handles—Marine Rope—The Red-Seeded Group—Munchausen’s Gin Tree Beaten—The Coralline a Vegetable—Beautiful Varieties—Irish Moss—The Green Seeds—Hints on Preserving Sea-weeds—The Boring Pholas—How they Drill—Sometimes through each other—The Spinous Cockle—The “Red-noses”—Hundreds of Peasantry Saved from Starvation—“Rubbish,” and the difficulty of obtaining it—Results of a Basketful—The Contents of a Shrimper’s Net—Miniature Fish of the Shore.
Mr. Gosse tells us in his “Tenby,” of a veritable submerged forest near Amroth. Pieces of soft and decayed wood constantly come to the surface, and are called by the peasantry “sea turf.” It is very commonly perforated by the shells of Pholas candida, being ensconed therein as closely as they can lie without mutual invasion. Other pieces are quite solid, resisting the knife like the good old oak timbers of a ship. Occasionally, during storms, whole trunks and roots and branches are torn away, come floating to the surface of the sea, and are cast on the shore. Some of them have been found “at the recess of the autumnal spring tides, which have marks of the axe still fresh upon them, proving that the encroachment of the sea has been effected since the country was inhabited by civilised man.” Several kinds of trees, including elm, willow, alder, poplar, and oak, have been found among the large fragments cast up. An account of the encroachments of the sea on various parts of our coasts would fill a large volume.
Mr. Gosse well describes some of the Devonshire coast scenery. “Now,” says he, “we are under Lidstep Head, a promontory in steepness and height rivalling its ‘proud’ opponents. I never before saw cliffs like these. The stratification is absolutely perpendicular, and as straight as a line, taking the appearance at every turn of enormous towers, castles, and abbeys, in which the fissures bear the closest resemblance to loopholes and doors. Great areas open enclosed as if with vast walls. The sea surface was particularly smooth, and we ventured to pull into one of these, exactly as if into a ruined castle or vast abbey; chamber opening beyond chamber, bounded and divided by what I must call walls of rock, enormous in height, and as straight as the architect’s plumb would have made them, with the smooth sea for the floor. If the tide had been high, instead of being low-water of a spring tide, we might have rowed all about this great enclosed court; but as it was, the huge square upright rocks were appearing above water, like massive altars and tables. The sea was perfectly clear, and we could look down to the foundations of the precipices where the purple-ringed Medusæ were playing. Altogether, it was a place of strange grandeur; we felt as if we were in a palace of the sea genii, as if we were where we ought not to be, and when a gull shrieked over our heads, and uttered his short, hollow, mocking laugh, we started and looked at one another as though something uncanny had challenged us, though the sun was shining broadly over the tops of those Cyclopean walls.
“We left this natural palace with regret; but the tide was near its lowest ebb, and I wished to be on the rocks for whatever might be obtainable in natural history. The lads, therefore, gave way, and we swiftly shot past this coast of extraordinary sublimity. [pg 200]Presently we came to the Droch, where a more majestic cavern than any we had yet seen appears. Up on a beach of yellow sand its immense span is reared with a secondary entrance; the arch of uniting stone is thrown across with a beautiful lightness, and appears as if hewn with the mason’s chisel. Dark domes are seen within, far up in the lofty vaulted roof, and pools of still, clear glassy water mirror the rude walls. This is certainly a glorious cave.”
Easiest of all maritime objects to collect are the so-called “sea-weeds,” which the Rev. J. G. Wood rightly terms a “miserable appellation,” to be employed under protest. They are in reality beautiful sea-plants of oft-times delicate form and colour; and even the larger and commoner varieties have much of interest about them, some having actual uses. One of the first to strike the eye on almost any beach is the common bladder-wrack (Fucus vesiculosus), that dark olive-brown sea-weed familiar to all visitors to our coasts. It is distinguished by its air-vessels, which explode when trodden on or otherwise roughly compressed, and which are the delight of all youngsters at the sea-side. This slimy and slippery weed makes rock-walking perilous in a moderate degree, a fact which does not generally stop young British maidens and their companions from slipping about over its tangled masses. A larger species (Fucus serratus) sometimes grows to a length of six feet. It is used as manure, and even as food for cattle; while it is excellent to pack lobsters, crabs, &c., if they have to be sent inland. These and kindred algæ, the generic term for sea-weed, are known as Melanosperms, or black-seeded, so called from the dark olive tint of the seeds or spores from which they spring, and with which they abound.