At the foot of Shanklin Chine occurs a singular collection of limestone pebbles, siliceous within, which are well worth examining. Extraordinarily-tinted choanites are here sometimes detected in the heart of most unattractive and mis-shapen blocks. I once asked a successful beaching lapidary there, how he knew them? He declared that he did not know them at all; but that whenever he saw fresh bonzes thrown up, especially if with a deep-sea mark upon them, he would break them all, and generally obtained a superb specimen among them. The objection to this murderous process was, as he confessed, that some of the finest were wont to be destroyed.
Latterly, I thought I discovered a way to recognize the presence of any such choanite. It is to look closely for a peculiar depression in the stone which is connected with the principal air-hole belonging to the fossil. But this method demands time and care.
Onwards to Luccombe, the beach disappears, owing, I imagine, to immovable depth of sand. At Luccombe Chine, it partially revives: but do not linger here. Go on to Bonchurch, and as you approach that lovely hillside, rouse all your energies. Here comes in a mile of sand, small shingle, and half-buried pebbles, which will put your skill to the test, if skill you have. Look out for symptoms of the “tubular” structure, and diverge now and then to the pools among those weedy rocks. Many a beautiful “actinia” in flint lies there snug enough, wedged in a dark cranny, and coated over with glutinous moss. You must really not be idle now. Do not even light a cigar, but hammer and delve and scrape away; only do not give in until you lay hold of something worth the while. Two zoophytes, of the agatine-siliceous kind, were picked up on this spot about a twelvemonth since, for which large sums of money were offered in Ventnor the same day. For one of this sort, an American gentleman, not long ago, gave eight pounds sterling. But there is in Brighton, or was till very recently, a pebble from the Rottingdean beach, for which fifty guineas have been offered to its possessor, and refused. I have not seen it myself, but I am told that it is a spotted pyriform choanite; the material, very beautiful agate.
At Ventnor, red gravel and diminutive carnelians, some of them not bigger than pins’ heads, await the pebble-seeker. Occasionally an agate is found here which is “chatoyant,” like an opal, but this is scarce.
I once tried the Freshwater strand, “ultima thule,” but I only met with doubtful, ragged flints. The north side of the island presents on its shores a surface chiefly of mud and estuary drift, delightful to solans and sea-gulls, but not profitable for the cabinet of the mineralogist.
I ought here, in common gratitude, to say something of the beauties of the Garden Isle. But, though some of the happiest hours of my life have been passed there, I grudge to dilate upon the theme. I could not, if I would, convey to a stranger a sense of the unutterable attachment which I feel for its swelling downs and curling seaward bays. Much of the charm of our old English scenery, which is fast disappearing elsewhere before the railway and the canal, is still to be met with in this sequestered island. Here are uncultivated rocky slopes, proffering rare wild-flowers; ivy-mantled cliffs and moss-grown brambles; bays which in winter witness the howling storm, and sometimes the fearful wreck, but in summer are invested with the calm beauty of a moonlit lake. The inhabitants also, many of them “aborigines,” have a primitive, unsophisticated character in the inland villages; while, on the coast, this is chequered by that roving disposition and semi-superstitious bent which are always to be found among sailors.
Oddly enough, the story of a pebble illustrates this trait of character. Some years ago, I was calling on a lapidary in Sandown who had done a good deal work for me, and done it well. His account was settled, and I was wishing him good morning, when he drew my attention to a remarkably beautiful pebble, ready cut and polished, and begged my acceptance of it. Now the stone, displayed on his board along with other specimens, could not fail to sell; and was worth to him, I should say, perhaps a sovereign. I was very unwilling to take it, but there was no refusing without offending an old friend; so it went home in my pocket. But somehow curiosity was stirred in my mind when reflecting on the circumstance afterwards. Why should he wish to make me a present? Or, allowing for goodwill taking so straightforward a course, why part with a stone of so much moneyed value? A few days after I dropped in again. My friend was out: but I found his wife, and stayed for a chat. Presently I referred, quite cursorily, to the gift which her husband had made me, “and,” said I, “I wish only it had been something of less value.” The gentler sex are sometimes more communicative than their mates. “Ah! sir,” replied Mrs. ⸺, “there was reason for giving you that, may be. Anyways, I’m real glad that it’s gone from us.” “Indeed! how is that?” “Why, that stone was an unlucky stone for us, and I wished it to go, somehow.” Then I learned from her the following singular tale.
Two brothers, sea-faring men, were great friends of the lapidary and his wife. One day, one of these brothers found this pebble on the beach, and had it cut. It turned out, as I have said, a remarkably fine specimen. It was what they call a “deep-sea” pebble, and the “choanite” of a reddish hue lay exactly central in the bonze of white limestone. The sailors were both of them quite fond of it: and when they went to sea again, the handsome pebble went with them, and was laid “o’ nights” on a shelf by the hammock.
Their boat was upset: one brother was drowned: the other righted the craft and got to shore, not without difficulty. Several articles were missing, having gone to the bottom; but the pebble was safe.
The survivor brought it back to the lapidary, and made him accept of it, being unwilling to retain it himself. The lapidary took it, and put it aside: but his better half found it out, and insisted that he should neither sell it nor keep it. So, he gave it away. This stone I afterwards parted with to a London collector: not wishing to preserve so sad a reminiscence. I took a fossil in exchange, which I almost immediately lost. So, nothing connected with the mysterious choanite was “lucky.”