Above this bed lie the raised beaches, some 40 or 50 ft. above high
water mark. The tin-beds in the Cornish valleys towards the sea do not
exhibit such an upheaval. Generally the raised beach rests on the
original rock, and consists of rolled stones, frequently of large size,
mixed with smaller gravel and sand. The "Head of Rubble," with some
intervening perplexing beds of sand, may be noticed on the coast. This
Head is from 40 to 50 ft. in depth. It is composed of angular fragments
of rock, often large, many of quartz, with no signs of stratification.
The Rubble bed in Cornwall has yielded no organic remains, but elsewhere
in it have been found the bones of the mammoth, elephant, woolly
rhinoceros, reindeer, etc. It was not formed by the disintegration of
the subjacent rocks, but by aqueous transport. It owes its origin to a
powerful force of water, acting violently and rapidly. It caps the
heights, and is not in the valleys where the tin ground has been
deposited. It has not therefore been found to overlie it. It was due to
a sudden and brief overrush of water, and the fragments of stone carried
before the flood did not travel sufficiently far to have their angles
rubbed down.
[Illustration: Perranporth Rocks]
As may well be supposed, the action of the sea on the coast-line has been
affected largely by the character of the rocks against which the waves
have lashed themselves to foam. Where the rocks are of granite or slate,
the tide and the waves have very little effect upon the outline of the
coast; it is in those places where the softer rocks prevail, and where
exposure to the prevalent wind induces breakers of great volume, that
the loss of land by the action of the sea is greatest. In fact, the
tides rarely run beyond one or two miles per hour, except round
headlands, and it is where the rocks are of a yielding character that
the coves and bays are formed. This is not always the case. Where the
sea has found a fault in the rock it will burrow incessantly till it has
bored out for itself a cavern, and the head of this falling in produces
a tiny cove. The hard quartzose and trap rocks of Trevose Head, the
greenstone rocks of Pentire, near Padstow, the hard slates of St Agnes,
the greenstone and hardened schist of the Gurnard's Head, and the
granite of the Land's End, defy the action of wave and tide. But it is
otherwise where, for instance, the Head of Rubble occurs. "In Gerrans
Bay it is plain that the cliffs of Head were at one time much further
out than they are now. The tops of the earthy cliffs are split with
cracks and miniature chasms, showing that great masses are constantly
being detached by atmospheric causes, while the great heaps of earth at
the foot of the cliffs show how for centuries masses of earth have
rolled down from their tops on to the beach below[1]." As to the kingdom
of Lyonesse, which was supposed to extend from the Land's End to beyond
Scilly, it never existed in the historic or prehistoric period. Another
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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