"Toll for the brave, the brave that are no more."
A somewhat similar catastrophe happened just about a hundred years later on the other side of the island. In 1878 the _Eurydice_ was passing along by the Undercliff under full sail. She was a training-ship, full of young lads, and the strong wind which could be felt in all its fury on the Downs above hardly touched her in the shelter below. Owing to some dreadful carelessness, however, she turned the corner still under canvas, was caught suddenly by a frightful squall, and thrown on her beam-ends. She never recovered, but went down straight in an awful tempest of sleet and snow which added to the horror and confusion. Of all the promising boys on board only three were picked up by a passing boat, and two alone survived.
St. Catherine's lighthouse stands not far from here, on the most southerly point of the island; its flashlight, said to be the most powerful in the world, throws a beam equal to 15,000,000 candles, and warns ships afar off of the dangerous coast. It is peculiarly appropriate that there should be a lighthouse here, for, so long ago as 1323, Walter de Goelyton built a chapel on Chale Down dedicated to St. Catherine, assigning certain rents to a chantry priest to say mass, and also to provide lights for "the safety of such vessels as chanced to come on that dangerous coast during the night." At the Dissolution the whole income was seized by the Crown.
Is one of the prettiest villages in the island.]
So curious and diversified is the geology of the island that it has been described as a microcosm of geology, for it contains in itself every kind of stratified rock. This geological variety shows itself markedly in the scenery; in fact, there are few places where the influence of geology on scenery can be so well studied. For instance, at Alum Bay, near the Needles, the whole of the strata from the chalk to the fluvio-marine formation are displayed in unbroken succession. The colours in these cliffs are wonderfully striking, ranging from gamboge and terra-cotta through ochres and red-browns, so that the whole is like shot silk seen in certain states of sunlight. As many people come to see the Alum Bay cliffs as the better-known Needles. The effect of the two together is most wonderful, because the coloured cliffs contrasting with the chalky white sharp-toothed crags and the brilliant blue of a summer sea are gorgeous in the extreme.