So he still waited, and looked in the face of the enemy.
The crest of this terrible natural facade passed among the neighbouring inhabitants as being seven hundred feet above the water it overhung.
It had been proved by actual measurement to be not a foot less than six hundred and fifty.
That is to say, it is nearly three times the height of Flamborough, half as high again as the South Foreland, a hundred feet higher than Beachy Head--the loftiest promontory on the east or south side of this island--twice the height of St.Aldhelm's, thrice as high as the Lizard, and just double the height of St.Bee's.

One sea-bord point on the western coast is known to surpass it in altitude, but only by a few feet.

This is Great Orme's Head, in Caernarvonshire.
And it must be remembered that the cliff exhibits an intensifying feature which some of those are without--sheer perpendicularity from the half-tide level.
Yet this remarkable rampart forms no headland: it rather walls in an inlet--the promontory on each side being much lower.

Thus, far from being salient, its horizontal section is concave.

The sea, rolling direct from the shores of North America, has in fact eaten a chasm into the middle of a hill, and the giant, embayed and unobtrusive, stands in the rear of pigmy supporters.