portance. To obtain this, vast sums have been expended in constructing a long series of forts, to command efficiently some five miles of coast. It is in this harbour that our merchant ships would look for safety in the event of war. It is here that gun boats and other ships of war would collect;-to this place they would repair for coal and stores;-here they might refit, and hence they might issue to cut off and destroy an enemy stationed at Cherbourg. If the Channel Islands are to be preserved-and that the possession of these islands means the possession of the Channel, is more than ever the case now-it can only be by rendering Alderney useful as well as strong; and much of this usefulness consists in there being a harbour of refuge. It is not now the time to consider what might have been done better; but it is a very serious question indeed, what can be done best with the materials still at our command.

On the northern side of the harbour is a hill of no great height, but of an exceedingly hard porphyritic rock, which has been strengthened, and on which is constructed the principal defence of the island. This is Fort Touraille. Beyond it is another, much smaller, but also important work-the Chateau d'Etoc. Between the two forts is another rocky little bay.

At the foot of a small hill near Fort Touraille is the first of a series of extensive quarries, opened and worked for the purposes of the harbour. The stone here is a grit-stone, partly fine and partly coarse-grained; moderately hard, compact, and capable of being worked in blocks of considerable size. This kind of sand-stone rock forms the whole of a small, low promontory at the north-easternmost extremity of the island. In a military sense, this extremity is the weakest point of the island. The coast is low, and though certainly very rocky, and with a con

* It is a fact of some interest, that many old buildings in Guernsey are partly constructed of this stone. It was, no doubt, much less costly to work and carry it from Alderney than to break the island granite with the imperfect tools at command.

siderable current generally driving past, it might, in favourable weather, be made use of for landing men and artillery.

To strengthen as much as possible this part of the island, no less than six forts and batteries have been constructed, the total length of coast-line being only about two miles; but it still remains weak, should an attack be made with mail-clad ships able to silence the batteries. There would be no difficulty in constructing a deep and wide canal, detaching this weak part of Alderney altogether, reducing the number of men and guns required for the defence of the place, and greatly strengthening the remaining defences, by rendering the landing of artillery almost impossible, except in Braye Harbour or the Plat Saline.

This little promontory of sand-stone has several small rocky bays, the last and largest of which, and that which cuts deepest into the shore, is called Longy Bay. Sand partly covers the rocks in all these bays; but the grit-stone rises in small jagged ledges and angular blocks, often extremely picturesque, and giving a curious appearance to the shore at low water. A small island of sand-stone is connected by a causeway with the northern side of Longy Bay. It is called the Isle du Ras '-the island of the Race (of Alderney)—a name corrupted into Rat Island. On it is a fort of some importance. Similar islands, occupied by forts and communicating by causeways, may be seen to the east and west of the northernmost point of Alderney, completing, as far as possible, the defences of those parts of the coast regarded as assailable.

The scenery of the coast, from the Clonque round to Longy, is not either grand or very picturesque. There are some small valleys with a few trees; but for the most part, the aspect of the land is naked and tame. Fort Touraille is an exception; and, from its severe simplicity of outline, it impresses one more with an idea of strength than any other part of the island. It is well placed, the approaches are few, and the intensely hard porphyritic rock on which it is built has been made available on all sides.

From Longy Bay the rest of the south-eastern part of the

SOUTH-EASTERN COAST.

25

island, a distance of nearly five miles, offers a succession of grand and beautiful examples of cliff scenery. These, however, are only approachable with some little difficulty, by following the line of the cliff and descending from place to place where the ground admits. There is hardly a single point along this whole coast at which it is possible to reach the sea without incurring greater trouble and risk than the occasion altogether warrants; but, without this, enough may be done to satisfy the lover of the picturesque, however severe and critical his taste may be. Com

mencing at Longy, one can ascend the steep cliff to the south by a good road, which continues as far as Fort Essex, where is a very curious little tower, said to be of great antiquity. From

this, a rough climb conducts to the Roche Pendante, one of the most magnificent isolated masses of sand-stone rock to be seen. This grand pinnacle rises from a heap of broken fragments of sand-stone, but is itself a part of the cliff. The separation is a narrow gorge, whose walls are absolutely vertical. The rock, having a stratification parallel with that of the cliff, stands-a huge, square block of stone-on a base, whose area is some two or three thousand square feet. It is at least thirty, perhaps forty, feet in height, and there is another similar but smaller block a little below, which again connects with a succession of rocky eminences extending out into the sea.

A noble view is obtained from the rocks at the foot of the Roche Pendante, the sand-stone being seen in a succession of stratified plates, dipping away into the sea, and covering the cliffs as far as the cliffs can be seen. Many inlets occur, and each of them presents peculiar and beautiful features, produced by numerous thinly-bedded grey rocks, coated with lichens, projecting beyond the soil.

Passing on along the slope of the cliff, the grit-stone may be walked on for more than a mile. It then ceases, and is succeeded by deep hollows, alternating with bold, narrow ridges of hard granitic rock, several of the granitic masses extending out to sea, and forming detached islands. The cliffs are here, without exception, far too steep to render a descent possible; but one can generally perceive the nature of the coast, by going some distance down on the deeply shelving slope, overgrown with broom, heather and grass. At one place a huge arched rock is seen, the light piercing through from the further side. In another, is a small beach, covered with black sand, mixed up with numerous large rounded blocks of granite. Here the rocks descend at once into a deep black pool; there the water is so clear that the rocky bottom is visible from the cliffs above, although their height is nearly 200 feet.

Continuing to work our way round the various inlets, we

come again, after a time, to the sand-stone, of which there is a second small patch, quarried near the top of the cliff, and seen reaching the sea.* Afterwards there is nothing but naked and rough granite and porphyry. Wonderfully broken and precipitous are the cliffs thus formed. Many of them are quite vertical, either to the sea or to very small bays, where the water is seen foaming and boiling in the most extraordinary manner. From one headland to another-round great hollow depressions, where the granite is soft and decomposing-along parts of the cliff where wide cracks at the surface show the possibility of the ground sinking under his feet, the visitor may pick his way, rewarded occasionally by bursts of unexpected grandeur and beauty. The cliffs are often so vertical, that one may look down to the sea rolling in at one's feet, and across a narrow inlet perceive clearly the geological structure of an opposite cliff. There is one spot in particular, where a wall of rock, a couple of hundred feet deep, displays a beautiful olive-coloured porphyry, crossed by great horizontal veins of flesh-coloured felspar, succeeding one another at intervals down to the sea line.†

The scenery of the cliffs varies a good deal, and much of it is almost peculiar to Alderney. In many places depressions of the surface are observable, and one is obliged either to make a wide circuit, or descend a deep hollow. Two or three such scoopings out of the surface are passed on the south-east coast. They correspond to the presence of a peculiarly decomposing rotten material, that alternates with the harder parts of the rock. As there are generally hard walls to these softer hollows, they are often in the highest degree picturesque, for the action of the sea having worn away a deep inlet, the wall of rock on each side allows of the inlet being approached pretty closely without inconvenience. Up one such hollow the telegraph wire

*This is well shown in a sketch engraved in Chapter X., where its geological meaning is explained.

✦ See illustration in page 1, the title to this part of the work.