tered and putrefying in that dismal place. Giants might have been
disembowelled there. From top to bottom of the granite ran long red
lines, which might have been compared to oozings from a funeral bier.

Such aspects are frequent in sea caverns.

V

A WORD UPON THE SECRET CO-OPERATIONS OF THE ELEMENTS

Those who, by the disastrous chances of sea-voyages, happen to be
condemned to a temporary habitation upon a rock in mid-ocean, find that
the form of their inhospitable refuge is by no means a matter of
indifference. There is the pyramidal-shaped rock, a single peak rising
from the water; there is the circle rock somewhat resembling a round of
great stones; and there is the corridor-rock. The latter is the most
alarming of all. It is not only the ceaseless agony of the waves
between its walls, or the tumult of the imprisoned sea; there are also
certain obscure meteorological characteristics which appear to appertain
to this parallelism of two marine rocks. The two straight sides seem a
veritable electric battery.

The first result of the peculiar position of these corridor-rocks is an
action upon the air and the water. The corridor-rock acts upon the waves
and the wind mechanically by its form; galvanically, by the different
magnetic action rendered possible by its vertical height, its masses in
juxtaposition and contrary to each other.

This form of rock attracts to itself all the forces scattered in the
winds, and exercises over the tempest a singular power of concentration.

Hence there is in the neighbourhood of these breakers a certain
accentuation of storms.

It must be borne in mind that the wind is composite. The wind is
believed to be simple; but it is by no means simple. Its power is not
merely dynamic, it is chemical also; but this is not all, it is
magnetic. Its effects are often inexplicable. The wind is as much
electrical as aerial. Certain winds coincide with the _aurores
boreales_. The wind blowing from the bank of the Aiguilles rolls the
waves one hundred feet high; a fact observed with astonishment by
Dumont-d'Urville. The corvette, he says, "knew not what to obey."

In the south seas the waters will sometimes become inflated like an
outbreak of immense tumours; and at such times the ocean becomes so
terrible that the savages fly to escape the sight of it. The blasts in
the north seas are different. They are mingled with sharp points of ice;
and their gusts, unfit to breathe, will blow