intersect each other in all directions. Old local topographers speak of Sidmouth as a considerable fishing town, and as carrying on some trade with Newfoundland, but its harbour is now totally choked up with rocks, which at low water are seen covered with sea-weed, stretching away to a considerable distance from the shore. Its history may be very briefly recounted. The manor of Sidmouth was presented by William the Conqueror to the abbey of St. Michel in Normandy, and was afterwards taken possession of by the Crown, during the wars with France, as the property of an alien foundation. It was afterwards granted to the monastery of Sion, with which it remained until the dissolution.

Hotels, boarding and lodging-houses are scattered over every part of Sidmouth and its vicinity, and the local arrangements are throughout excellent. The public buildings are soon enumerated, for they only consist of a church, near the centre of the town, a very ordinary edifice of the fifteenth century, enlarged from time to time, a neat little chapel of ease, and a new market-house, built in 1840. Around here and in the Fore-street are some excellent shops, and the town is well supplied with gas and water. The sea-wall was completed in 1838. There was formerly an extensive bank of sand and gravel, thrown up by the sea, a considerable distance from the front of the town, but this being washed away in a tremendous storm, this defence was resorted to as a more permanent protection from the encroachment of the waves. It now forms an agreeable promenade, upwards of 1,700 feet long.

Sidmouth is sheltered by its hills from every quarter, except the south, where it is open to the sea, and has an atmosphere strongly impregnated with saline particles. Snow is very

rarely witnessed, and in extremely severe seasons, when the surrounding hills are deeply covered, not a vestige, not a The flake, will remain in this warm and secluded vale. average mean winter temperature is from four to five degrees warmer than London, and eight degrees warmer than the northern watering-places.

Previous to the great storm in the winter of 1824, which extended over the whole of the north of Europe, and was most sensibly felt along the southern coast of England, a little rock formed a pretty feature in the sea view, and was the only object that broke the uniformity of the prospect. It was a mass of indurated clay-the last wreck of the land, which, at no very remote period, undoubtedly extended itself in this direction, and which has been gradually washed into the sea. The work of destruction is yet going on, and large pieces of the cliff still fall occasionally, in rainy weather. The conspicuous situation of Chit Rock-for so was it called-led to an annual festival among the fishermen, who every year formed a procession to its base, and crowned the oldest member of their body king of Chit Rock. Some of them climbed to the summit, where they fixed a flag, and a day of feasting usually concluded with a parting bowl upon the rock, which was partaken of by as many as could get to the top, and find a footing upon its very narrow dimensions.

The great storm, which destroyed so much shipping on the coast, and considerably damaged the breakwater at Plymouth (as detailed at page 67), was felt with redoubled severity at Sidmouth. It began about one o'clock on a dark winter morning; the beautiful beach was destroyed, and washed many yards up into the town; the library and places of amusement fronting the sea were levelled, and the inhabitants,

in a number of instances, were taken from their bed-room windows in boats. When the morning dawned, the streets of the town were found filled with sand-stones and rubbish, the shore was strewn with wrecks, and Chit Rock, which had braved so many storms, was gone. Well may subsequent visitors regret the loss of this little rock; not that it was much in itself, but it was the only object in view on that side, and it was prized accordingly. It was also a goal to be obtained by those who were actively disposed, and most persons who visited Sidmouth once at least during their stay made an attempt to reach it. This was a matter of some difficulty, for it was only at low water that it could be achieved, and the rocks were so slippery, from the slimy sea-weed by which they were always covered, that many a slip into the water has been the consequence of an insecure step, or a leap from one stone to the other.

“In Sidmouth and its neighbourhood," says the author of the "Route Book of Devon," "will be found an inexhaustible mine for the study and amusement of the botanist, geologist, or conchologist. A very curious relic of antiquity was found on the beach here about five years since-a Roman bronze standard or centaur, representing the centaur Chiron, with his pupil Achilles behind his back. The bronze is cast hollow, and is about nine inches in height. The left fore leg of the centaur is broken, and the right hind leg mutilated. The under part or pedestal formed a socket, by which the standard was screwed on a pole or staff."

The present great features of interest in the neighbourhood are the landslips, ten miles distant, which, extending along the coast from Sidmouth to Lyme Regis, are most interesting to the geologist and the lover of nature. The locality,

which has obtained so much celebrity, lies between the river Axe and Lyme. The cliffs between these two points, taking their names from the respective farms to which they adjoin going from west to east, are called Haven, Bendon, Dowlands, Rowsedown, Whitlands, Pinhay, and Ware cliffs. The Rev. W. D. Conybeare, in his "Account of the Landslips on the South-east of Devon," speaking of the appearance of these cliffs, says, "the broken scenery of East Devon undercliff ranges upward to the very brow of the down, being generally surmounted by a range of chalky cliff, averaging 200 feet in almost perpendicular height; in front of this range, shattered turrets and pinnacles, the fragments of subsided masses, stand out in the boldest relief. In the central point of this district, at Whitlands, this upper range is mantled over by luxuriant screens of ash and elm, growing wherever the less precipitous slope of the escarpment will allow a root to attach itself, and often where nothing but a veil of ivy could have been expected. These screens of foliage blending with the projecting crags of chalk, and softening down the harsher glare of that mineral, produce the happiest effects. Between this upper range of cliffs and the beach, a space intervenes of about a furlong in breadth, and from 200 to 300 feet above the sea, occupied by a series of broken terraces, formed by successive subsidences. These terraces are generally divided from each other by deep dingles, commonly crowned with underwood, but occasionally cleared and planted as apple orchards. A single line of the poet

Crags, mounds, and knolls, confusedly hurled,

presents at once the characteristic features of this broken ground.

This range of cliffs, extending from Haven to Pinhay, has been the theatre of two convulsions, or landslips, one commencing on Christmas-day, 1839, at Bendon and Dowlands, whereby forty-five acres of arable land were lost to cultivation-the other about five weeks after, on the 3rd of February, 1840, at Whitlands, little more than a mile to the eastward of 'the former, but much smaller in magnitude than the previous one.

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In describing these convulsions of nature, the same writer has observed:-" Previous symptoms of the proaching convulsion were not altogether wanting; cracks had been observed for more than a week along the brow of the downs; but they were not remarkable enough to attract much attention, as in this situation such fissures were not uncommon; until about midnight of the 24th of December, as the labourers of Mr. Chappel, who occupied the farm of Dowlands (about a quarter of a mile inland from the brow of the cliff, and more than a mile from the nearest points of the approaching convulsion), were returning from a supper, with which, in compliance with the local custom 'of burning the ashen fagot on Christmas eve, he had entertained them, and descending the steep path which wound down the brow of the cliff, to their own cottages, situated in a low region of the undercliff, they observed that one of the slight subsidences before noticed, which traversed their path, had sunk down more than a foot since they had crossed it in their ascent to their work in the morning. They retired to rest, however, but were disturbed about four o'clock on the ensuing morning by observing the walls of their tenements rending and sinking, and fissures opening in the ground around them. They repaired before six o'clock to alarm their landlord at the farm