At Looe, the two rivers bearing the same name fall into a bay, and seaward stands up Looe Island, crowned by the ruins of a chapel. This island was also a haunt of smugglers, and it was found necessary to establish a coastguard station on it to keep them in control. East Looe and West Looe each sent two members to Parliament before the passing of the Reform Bill.
Looe
Between Looe and Rame Head is Whitesand Bay, so called from the whiteness of the sand. The quicksands have made it dangerous for bathers, but the cliff scenery is beautiful and romantic. There is a tiny watering-place at its western end, Downderry. At Tregantle is the most important of the western defences of Plymouth. A peninsula is formed by the Lynher river which discharges into the Hamoaze, and the neck of land between it and the sea is about two miles in breadth. Tregantle stands 400 ft. above the sea and commands every approach to Plymouth Sound.
Rame Head projects into the sea from Maker Heights and is the termination of a range of cliffs from Looe, and from hence a fine view can be had of the Cornish coast as far as the Lizard.
On the east of Penlee Point is Cawsand Bay, once infested with smugglers, sheltered by Rame Head from westerly gales. A rock with a cave in it and a white incrustation is regarded here with some superstitious reverence, and fishermen throw a few pilchards or herrings to it as an oblation when returning from fishing.
10. The Coast—Gains and Losses.
At a vastly remote period a valley lay between Britain and Gaul—before ever they were Britain and Gaul—and through this well-wooded valley flowed a river. The coast-line of Britain then lay from one to two hundred miles to the west, where is now the great drop in the ocean depths from 100 fathoms to 300 or 400. Cornwall was a Mesopotamia, a land between two almost parallel rivers, one occupying the bottom of what is now the English Channel, the other being the Severn. At that time the Bristol Channel was another great valley. From Brown Willy to the Scilly Isles ran a lofty mountain range, towering into the sky, of which the present Bodmin moors, Carn Brea, Carn Marth, Tregonning Hill, etc., are but the abraded stumps. Not only were they much higher, but their present roots stood 300 ft. higher than at present.