Among more consolidated limestones, as we have hinted, the joints are effective in promoting bold rock-scenery. The absorptive power of the rock, rather than its hardness, prevents it from being washed away. Water that might round the edges of escarpments and send down taluses to modify the slopes sinks into the ground and works out passages by solution. On level surfaces, the solubility of limestone in water charged with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is apparent by the formation of pitted hollows, with edges between them that grow sharper until they are worn through. Where a rain-drop first secures a resting-place, its successors deepen the little hollow. Water lies in this after every shower, working its way gently downwards. In time the rock may seem bored into as if prepared for blasting; the holes unite to form vertical grooves, and the surface is cut deeply into fantastic forms. The face of the rock, formed by weathering on a valley-side or towards the sea, or occurring on any mass that is being cut back and reduced by denudation, is likely to be vertical, or at any rate perpendicular to the bedding. The form of the surfaces of the beds is perpetuated by their fairly uniform lowering through solution. The result is that stratification surfaces and planes perpendicular to them control in a very marked degree the scenery of limestone lands (Fig. 1). [Illustration: Fig. 1. Surface of Limestone Plateau. Causse du Larzac, Aveyron, France.] Where the beds are level, with occasional partings of a slightly different composition, the country will develop terraces, like those of the Burren in northern Clare. Where they are folded, as in the Juras, scarps and dip-slopes follow one another picturesquely, the weathered edge of the bed, the true escarpment, being sometimes at an angle as steep as that of the dip. Hence a false effect of sharp peaks is produced, when these "edges" are seen end on at a distance. The terrace-structure may be seen in miniature forms upon a rocky shore, where the blocks loosened from the escarpments of the successive beds are carried away by the waves. Frost-action is powerful in larger instances, and sends down huge blocks upon the lower terraces. A combination of shale bands and massive limestones, especially with a dip outward from the highland, leads to destructive landslips, since the sloping surface of shale is lubricated by water that passes through the limestone (see Fig. 9). Outward slips of the coast are thus common in Antrim, and have been extensive near Axmouth, two regions where chalk rests upon Liassic clays.