"Dr. Arnold and I examined yesterday the pit which is dug out for the foundation of the Nelson monument, and found that the first bed of shingle is eight feet down. Now this was the last stratum brought by the sea; all since was driven up by wind and kept there by the 'Rest-harrow' and other plants. It is mere sand. Therefore, thirty-five years ago the Deens were nearly as low as the last stratum left by the sea; and as the wind would naturally have begun adding from the very first, it is clear that within fifty years the sea flowed over that part. This, even Mr. T. allows, is a strong argument in favour of the recency of the changes. Dr. Arnold surprised me by telling me that he thought that the Straits of Dover were formerly joined, and that the great current and tides of the North Sea being held back, the sea flowed higher over these parts than now. If he had thought a little more he would have found no necessity for all this, for all those towns on this eastern coast, which have no river god to stand their friend, have necessarily been losing in the same proportion as Yarmouth gains--viz. Cromer, Pakefield, Dunwich, Aldborough, etc., etc. With Dunwich I believe it is _Fuit Ilium_."[5] Evidently Lyell by this time had become deeply interested in geology, for his journal contains several notes made on the road from London to Kinnordy, and records, during his stay there, not only the capture of insects, but also visits to quarries, and the discovery of crystallised sulphate of barytes at Kirriemuir and elsewhere. Towards the end of his first long vacation he travelled, in company with two friends of his own age, from Forfarshire across by Loch Tay, Tyndrum, and Loch Awe, to the western coast at Oban, whence they visited Staffa and Iona. With the caves in the former island he was greatly impressed; and he noted the columns of basalt, which, he said, were "pentagonal" in form, quite different from the "four-square" jointing of the red granite at the south-west end of Mull. With the ruins of Iona he was a little disappointed, for he wrote in his diary that "they are but poor after all." The wonders of Fingal's Cave appealed to his poetical as well as to his geological instincts, for in October, after his return to Oxford, he sent to his father some stanzas on this subject which are not without a certain merit. But the covering letter was mostly devoted to geology.