Glaucus; Or, The Wonders of the Shore

But why loose stones?— and if so, what matter? and what wonder? There are rocks cropping out everywhere down the hill-side. Because if you will take up one of these stones and crack it across, you will see that it is not of the same stuff as those said rocks. Step into the next field and see. That rock is the common Snowdon slate, which we see everywhere. The two shoulders of down, right and left, are slate, too; you can see that at a glance. But the stones of the pebble bank are a close-grained, yellow-spotted rock. They are Syenite; and (you may believe me or not, as you will) they were once upon a time in the condition of a hasty pudding heated to some 800 degrees of Fahrenheit, and in that condition shoved their way up somewhere or other through these slates. But where? whence on earth did these Syenite pebbles come? Let us walk round to the cliff on the opposite side and see. It is worth while; for even if my guess be wrong, there is good spinning with a brass minnow round the angles of the rocks. Now see. Between the cliff-foot and the sloping down is a crack, ending in a gully; the nearer side is of slate, and the further side, the cliff itself, is— why, the whole cliff is composed of the very same stone as the pebble ridge. Now, my good friend, how did these pebbles get three hundred yards across the lake? Hundreds of tons, some of them three feet long: who carried them across? The old Cymry were not likely to amuse themselves by making such a breakwater up here in No-man’s-land, two thousand feet above the sea: but somebody or something must have carried them; for stones do not fly, nor swim either.