quite as instructive as more important ones.

Another way in which rain changes the surface of the earth is by
sinking down through loose soil from the top of a cliff to a
depth of many feet till it comes to solid rock, and then lying
spread over a wide apace. Here it makes a kind of watery mud,
which is a very unsafe foundation for the hill of earth above
it, and so after a time the whole mass slips down and makes a
fresh piece of land at the foot of the cliff. If you have ever
been at the Isle of Wight you will have seen an undulating strip
of ground, called the Undercliff, at Ventnor and other places,
stretching all along the sea below the high cliffs. This land
was once at the top of the cliff, and came down by succession of
landslips such as we have been describing. A very great landslip
of this kind happened in the memory of living people, at Lyme
Regis, in Dorsetshire, in the year 1839.

You will easily see how in forming earth-pillars and causing
landslips rain changes the face of the country, but
these are only rare effects of water. It is when the rain
collects in brooks and forms rivers that it is most busy in
sculpturing the land. Look out some day into the road or the
garden where the ground slopes a little, and watch what happens
during a shower of rain. First the rain-drops run together in
every little hollow of the ground, then the water begins to flow
along any ruts or channels it can find, lying here and there in
pools, but always making its way gradually down the slope.
Meanwhile from other parts of the ground little rills are
coming, and these all meet in some larger ruts where the ground
is lowest, making one great stream, which at last empties itself