URCH 307
_Photo by Alex. Old_

TREVOSE LIGHTHOUSE 311
_Photo by Alex. Old_

CLIFFS NEAR PADSTOW 317
_Photo by Alex. Old_

A ROUGH CORNISH SEA 323
_Photo by Alex. Old_

WADEBRIDGE 327
_Photo by Alex. Old_

PORT ISAAC 331
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_

TINTAGEL 337
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_

KING ARTHUR'S CASTLE 343
_Photo by Alex. Old_

ST. KNIGHTON'S KIEVE 349
_Photo by Alex. Old_

MORWENSTOW 367
_Photo by Gibson & Sons_

The Cornwall Coast

CHAPTER I

THE PLYMOUTH DISTRICT

Britain is an emergent mass of land rising from a submarine platform
that attaches it to the Continent of Europe. The shallowness of its
waters--shallow relatively to the profundity of ocean deeps--is most
pronounced off the eastern and south-eastern coasts; but it extends
westward as far as the isles of Scilly, which are isolated
mountain-peaks of the submerged plateau. The seas that wash the long
Cornish peninsula, therefore, though they are thoroughly oceanic in
character, especially on the north, are not oceanic in depth; we have
to pass far beyond Scilly to cross the hundred-fathom line. From the
Dover strait westward there is a gradual lowering of the incline,
though of course with such variations and undulations as we find on
the emerged plains; but the existence of this vast submarine basis
must cause us to think of our island, naturally and geologically, as a
true part of the great European continent, rendered insular by the
comparatively recent intrusion of shallow and narrow waters. With some
developments and some limits, our flora and fauna are absolutely
Continental, the limits being even more noticeable as regards Ireland.
The extensive coast-line has played a most important part in
influencing national history and characteristics. The greater or less
resistance of different rocks and soils has affected not only
coast-configurations, but therewith also the very existence and
well-being o