We come now to Botallack with its famous mine, carried to a depth of a
thousand feet and extending a considerable distance under the sea. In
time of storm the booming of the waves overhead and the clashing of
stones rolled by the billows is so great that the bravest miners are
driven from their work. Tin mining is now but languidly carried on.
Although the heights are not great, yet this portion of coast is
remarkably fine.
Cape Cornwall exhibits the junction of the slate with the granite. Here
also extensive mining has been carried on, and Boswedden, like
Botallack, burrowed far under the sea. Near the church of St Just is one
of the circles or amphitheatres in which miracle plays were performed.
The "Merry Maidens" is a prehistoric stone circle in the neighbourhood
with ten stones erect and five fallen.
Whitesand Bay enjoys some slight shelter from the S. and E. winds. It is
said that this bay was the landing-place of Athelstan after his conquest
of Scilly, of King Stephen in 1135, and of King John when he returned
from Ireland. In Sennen Cove is a cluster of fishermen's cottages.
Land's End is the end of Penwith, the "chief headland," and the Bolerium
of the ancients. It commands a magnificent view, extending to Cape
Cornwall over Whitesand Bay, of the Longships rocks with their
lighthouse, and in clear weather of the Scilly Isles. The Wolf
lighthouse is planted on a dangerous rock of felspathic porphyry some
eight miles S.W. from the shore. The Land's End bristles with sharp
fangs of rock, and somewhat resembles the back of an alligator.
[Illustration: Land's End]
=9. Around the Coast. From Land's End to Rame Head.=
The south coast-line of Cornwall presents a great contrast to that of
the north, except for the portion from the Land's End to Mounts Bay and
the Lizard. We have no more the wind-swept background of heights,
barren and often tortured by miners, turned into a waste of heaps of
rubble and studded with ruined engine-houses. We find instead a gentler
sea-board, pierced by long estuaries, and with valleys of rich
vegetation running down to the sea. We speedily leave the granite and
the culm measures, and are among the rocks of the Devonian series, less
stern and forbidding in colour. In St Levan parish at Trereen Point is
the Logan Rock, a block of granite weighing over 65 tons, once so nicely
balanced that it could be made to rock by the finger of a child. In 1874
a young naval officer, with the assistance of a boat's crew, upset it.
This raised a storm of indignation in Cornwall, and the Admiralty
ordered him to replace it, which he did, at great expense.
[Illustration: Newlyn Pier]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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