THF BEAUTIES OF BRITAIN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2516, 4 June 1902, Page 69

THF BEAUTIES OF BRITAIN.

By a Banker

One of the principal causes of the variect beauty and charm of the scenery of the British Isles is the fact that within its narrow sea-girt boundaries strata of all ages-from the plutonic rocks forming the skeleton of the eartff right on through all the long eons of geologic time— have been forced from beneath, a°nd now, m different parts of the islands, form the surface. Selecting a few from the principal formations in their natural sequence, we find that granite one of the earliest of the priniieval rocks, mvea to the Bcenery a wild and mountainous aspectsheer precipices, dark caverns and ravines rugged, though beautiful, prospects, diversified with those poaked crags and upreared pyramidal pikes which add so much to the giandeur of the lake scenery. Serpentine, another of the earliest of the earth's foundations, g-VC» to the Cornish coastline its massive sublimity ; and as this rock appears to vary in hardness, numerous deep caverns are worn by the evercontinued onslaughts of the wild Atlantic rollers; in some cases a narrow outlet being cut from the upper end of the cavern, through which, in rough weather, a great roaring jefc of foaming water is forced high iv air at certain stages of the tide.

The carboniferous limestone which abounc'.a ' in lovely Derbyshire has produced those sublime chff-bordpred gorges, those precipitous acclivities and precipices; and also that wonderful subterranean scenery with its pillared: halls, its dark sombre lakes and rushing torrents, which so bewilder the explorer who ventures into those vast and gloomy nature-hewn, caves. Then comes the red sandstone of that garden of England, fair Devon: its shores bordered by bold jutting cliffs, ruddy as though carved out of cornelian, and its newly-ploughed almost blood-red fields contrasting marvellously with the vivid emerald green of its verdure.

Omitting, from want of space, any refcrenc to some other beauty-creating strata, we nowcome to that pre-eminently English formation, those upreared buttressed cliffs of chalk which, white and glistering as the driven snow, ar« such a welcome sight to the returning emigrant as he sees the long white line rising above the distant horizon iv all their well-remembered beauty. And wherever there is chalk, undulating grassy slopc-s, varied by steep oombei and hollows, may almost always be found. And what more enjoyable than to walk along the edge of those rolling downs on the closecut, springy turf, in that invigorating, crisp, and life-giving air. Far beneath, the foamcrested waves are breaking on the golden sand, while sparkling in the sun and stretching out to the fax-distant horizon is the glorious, pver-restloss ocean, necked here and there with tho sun-lit white sails of coasters and outwarc 7bound -vessels.

Aud lastly, the more recent deposits" of sands 1 — e.g., the Bagshot sands— impart a totally, different aspect to the scene. Here we see broad tracts of purple heather, pine woods, and birches in abundance, but not a solitary elm, and but few of several other of the woodland trees.

But what a different and less interesting 1 country would Old England have been had tho entire land been granite, or chalk, or sand. Happily, Divine Providence has, by causing such a variety of strata to form her soil, made, her one of the gardens of the world. Would; that the Empire would better acknowledge all the varied benefits conferred upon it by tho Almighty, by conforming to His laws, and by. believing in His Son, who died upon the Cross to atone for our misdeeds.

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