Note 11 — Chapter II · YOUNG HUMPHRY’S RESOLVES.

Davy is said to have delighted as a boy in visiting the Land’s End. In one of his early poems occurs the following passage, in which the spot is spoken of under its Latin name, “Bolerium:”

“It is surely not difficult,” says Dr. Paris, “to understand how it happened that a mind endowed with the genius and sensibility of Davy should have been directed to the study of chemistry and mineralogy, when we consider the nature and scenery of the country in which accident had placed him.... Nor could he have wandered along the rocky coast, nor have reposed for a moment to contemplate its wild scenery, without being invited to geological inquiry.... ‘How often, when a boy,’ said Davy to me (adds the Doctor), on my showing him a drawing of the wild rock scenery of Botallack Mine, ‘have I wandered about those rocks in search of new minerals, and, when fatigued, sat down upon the turf, and exercised my fancy in anticipation of scientific renown.’” (Botallack Mine is situate at St. Just, a town near to Cape Cornwall, and but a short distance from the Land’s End.) “The granite and serpentine rocks of his native county were, I believe,” says Dr. John Davy, “the first he studied when he commenced the pursuit of geology, and both of them were to him particularly attractive. The finest examples of these rocks were within a day’s ride of Penzance; and when he visited home, a young man, he never failed paying the Lizard and the Land’s End a visit, and generally in company with some of his old school-fellows. I remember, when a boy,” Dr. D. continues, “being allowed to join one of these parties to the Land’s End, and it was a merry one—as youthful parties commonly are. After exploring the cliff scenery, we dined at a tavern at St. Just, and I well recollect the boisterous mirth indulged in when the repast was concluded—the gymnastic feats attempted, the shouts of applause, the unconstrained laughter, and all that abandonment of spirit to mirth so common to young persons under excitement, and which, excepting in youth, can scarcely be felt or enjoyed.”—Life of Sir Humphry Davy.

In the commencement of a work designed by Sir Humphry Davy upon “The Geology of Cornwall,” the philosopher himself gives the following description of the rocks at the Land’s End: “In the great arrangement of the masses of granite of Cornwall, the rock appears composed of an immense number of blocks of different sizes. This structure is nowhere more perfectly exhibited than in the western cliffs. The incessant agency of the Atlantic, its storms and its waves, have washed away or destroyed all the loose materials of the shore, and left abrupt eminences of rock from 50 to 360 feet in height. The arrangement of the granite is in masses which approach to the cubical form, having, however, rounded edges, heaped upon each other.... The masses are grand, their colours uniform, and their uniformity increases the effect upon the eye; while the arrangements of this kind have a peculiar wildness and sublimity. Nowhere is it seen upon a greater scale, or in a more magnificent assemblage of forms, than from a point between the Land’s End and Castle Treene. Both these grand promontories appear extending into the Atlantic; the cliffs between them are abrupt and lofty; the waves are broken by a number of small island rocks, which are scattered along the shore. The few portions of soil that appear above the cliff are covered with short green grass, tufted with heath and furze, which, in the autumn, present mixed hues of purple and gold. The rock throughout is of a uniform yellowish red, the tint perfectly contrasted to the blue-greens of the sea.” (Castle Treene, or “Castle Treryn,” as it is more correctly written, is a headland beyond “St. Levan churchtown,” as it is sometimes called—though the chapel which formerly stood there has been many years since washed away by the sea, the steps alone now remaining.) St. Levan lies a little to the eastward of the headland called “Tol Pedn Penwith.” A short distance from St. Levan is “Port Carnow Cove,” which is bounded on the eastern side by rocks that jut far into the waves, and rise to a great height, being heaped one on another, in magnificent order. Here stands the noble headland called “Castle Treryn,” above whose summit two huge slanting and imposing masses of granite protrude. There is a fissure between these masses leading to a smaller group of granite rocks, on the top of which the huge Logan stone (weighing some 65 tons) stands so delicately poised, that by clambering to a fearful height at one of the angles, it may be made to sway to and fro with the least force.