Adventure and adventurers > Black's guide to the counties of Dorset, Devon, & Cornwall

14
FROM POOLE TO LYME REGIS.
Route 1.
the villase wells out a clear abundant stream, which, after sup*
plying a flour-mill, ripples downward into the cove.
The geologist will here be equally, interested with the artist.
On the west side the strata are arranged in the following order,
from north to south: chalk, firestone, gault, Wealden, Purbeck,
and Portland stone. On the east side, reckoning from the south,
we have a similar collocation, Portland, Purbeck, Wealden, gault,
firestone, and chalk. The sea waters, having penetrated through
the Portland stone, worked away upon the other strata in propor¬
tion to their varying powers of resistance, and so produced the
natural harbour which we are now exploring. On the east side
fossil-trees are found in the black earthy “ dirt-bed” placed
between the Portland oolite, and “the stratum of calcareous
laminated stone termed ‘ burr,’ ” which underlies the Purbeck
limestone.
Out of the Cove, and into the open sea! and rounding the
cliff on whose summit is perched the coastguard station of Nel¬
son Fort, we pass, in succession, Stare Cove, a romantic chasm
in the limestone, perforated by several caverns, and rendered
remarkable by the contortions into which its strata have been
thrown; Man-of-War Cove, so called from a long rock at the
entrance which bears a fancied resemblance to a man-of-war;
Dungy Head, an abundant rabbit-warren; Oswald Bay, and the
lofty chalk cliffs of Harm Tout or Theut, named after the Egyp¬
tian deity whom the Celts worshipped as Theut-Ait, the god of
the dead, and to whom they consecrated all hills which were
shaped like sepulchral barrows.
H wind and tide permit, the voyager may now sail through
the arched passage of the Barn Door formed by the waves in
a projecting crag of nearly vertical Portland oolite, which bounds
the east cape of Durdle Bay. It is a romantic entrance into a
beautiful cove :—the chalk rises inland to a height of 669 feet,
at Swyre Head (the second hill so named)—the beach is pebbly,
and the face of the cliff is dark with wings, with guillemots, auks,
choughs, puffins, gulls, and shags. Bat’s Corner, the western
extremity of the bay, consists of vertical strata of chalk and flint,
penetrated by a sea-resounding cavern. Here an isolated mass
of chalk rises, lonesome and weather worn, out of the waves.
Towards Whitenose (comp, ness, naze, a cape), 3£ miles from
Lulworth Cove, the firestone and gault appear at the base of the
chalk cliffs, and the chalk trends away inland to form the Chaldon