now, Madam How had orders to lift up the whole coast of Bournemouth only
twenty or even ten feet higher out of the sea than it is now. She could
do that easily enough, for she has been doing so on the coast of South
America for ages; she has been doing so this very summer in what hasty
people would call a hasty, and violent, and ruthless way; though I shall
not say so, for I believe that Lady Why knows best. She is doing so now
steadily on the west coast of Norway, which is rising quietly--all that
vast range of mountain wall and iron-bound cliff--at the rate of some
four feet in a hundred years, without making the least noise or
confusion, or even causing an extra ripple on the sea; so light and
gentle, when she will, can Madam How's strong finger be.

Now, if the mouth of that Chine at Bournemouth was lifted twenty feet out
of the sea, one thing would happen,--that the high tide would not come up
any longer, and wash away the cake of dirt at the entrance, as we saw it
do so often. But if the mud stopped there, the mud behind it would come
down more slowly, and lodge inside more and more, till the Chine was half
filled-up, and only the upper part of the cliffs continue to be eaten
away, above the level where the springs ran out. So gradually the Chine,
instead of being deep and narrow, would become broad and shallow; and
instead of hollowing itself rapidly after every shower of rain, as you
saw the Chine at Bournemouth doing, would hollow itself out slowly, as
this glen is doing now. And one thing more would happen,--when the sea
ceased to gnaw at the foot of the cliffs outside, and to carry away every
stone and grain of sand which fell from them, the cliffs would very soon
cease to be cliffs; the rain and the frost would still crumble them down,
but the dirt that fell would lie at their feet, and gradually make a
slope of dry land, far out where the shallow sea had been; and their
tops, instead of being steep as now, would become smooth and rounded; and
so at last, instead of two sharp walls of cliff at the Chine's mouth, you