The cliffs themselves struck me as merely exhibiting the precipitous banks of an almost level country of moderate elevation (three or four hundred feet) which the violent lash of the whole of the Southern Ocean was always acting upon and undermining.

Their rock formation consisted of various strata, the upper crust or surface being an oolitic limestone; below this is an indented concrete mixture of sand, soil, small pebbles, and shells; beneath this appear immense masses of a coarse greyish limestone, of which by far the greater portion of the cliffs are composed; and immediately below these again is a narrow stripe of a whitish, or rather a cream-coloured substance, lying in horizontal strata, but which the impracticable nature of the cliffs did not permit me to examine.

After riding for forty-five miles along their summits, I was in no instance able to descend; their brinks were perfectly steep and overhanging, and in many places enormous masses appeared severed by deep cracks from the main land, and requiring but a slight touch to plunge them into the abyss below.

As far as I have yet been along these cliffs, I have seen nothing in their appearance to lead me to suppose that any portion of them is composed of chalk.

Immediately along their summits, and for a few hundred yards back, very numerous pieces of pure flint are lying loosely scattered upon the surface of the limestone.