I have been assured that it was no unfrequent occurrence for a pot of potatoes capsized at the doorway to tumble down the slope and make no stop until safely esconced at the sea-bottom. The process whereby these fissures and caverns originate is the same as that noticed already in the Spar Cave. Water containing an impregnation of carbonic acid filters down through cracks and fissures of the calcareous rock, dissolving out in its passage a portion of the lime which it eventually carries back to the surface, and either deposits there or transports into streams, and thence to the sea. Thus atom by atom is removed wherever the percolating water reaches, until in the course of ages an irregular cavern of greater or less extent is produced. The decomposition of limestone at the surface results from the same kind of action, that of carbonated water. Every shower of rain insensibly carries away a fraction of the constituent parts of the rock, so that the size and form of detached blocks as well as of exposed cliffs is constantly changing. How often do we see the same decay going on with a melancholy rapidity among the exposed marble tombstones of our churchyards. In a few years the tablet gets worn and furrowed as though it had stood there for centuries. Eventually, too, the inscription becomes effaced, and perhaps ere the bones of the deceased have mouldered away and mingled with their kindred dust, the epitaph that recorded for the admiration of posterity his many virtues and his vigorous talents, has faded from the stone--often, alas! only too fit an emblem of how speedily the memory of the dead may fade away out of the land of the living. CHAPTER IX.