Statistical Survey of the County of Antrim

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Jiasalt pillars in the island of Staffa far exceed the Irish in t grandeur. He was not aware, that our coasts exhibit many miles of vast perpendicular precipices, lined with basalt columns, in parallel ranges, with a magnificence unrivalled in any other part of the world. These extensive and towering...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Jiasalt pillars in the island of Staffa far exceed the Irish in t grandeur. He was not aware, that our coasts exhibit many miles of vast perpendicular precipices, lined with basalt columns, in parallel ranges, with a magnificence unrivalled in any other part of the world. These extensive and towering precipices disclose to the naturalist the materials and arrangement of the strata, of which this country is formed, displaying a variety of the basalts of different forms, and of a different principle of construction, internal and external, such as has not been yet met with, or noticed in any other part of the world. These stupendous facades offer a scenery, magnificent beyond description, to those who sail along their base, and discover many curious circumstances, which have hitherto escaped the notice of naturalists; I shall mention one. The Giant's Causeway, compared by Doctor Hamilton to a mole, and supposed by Messrs. Desmarey and llaspe to be a jet or current of lava running into the sea from the base of a volcanic hill, now appears to be a part of one of the original strata of our globe, placed at its intersection with the plane of the sea; this stratum is forty-four feet thick, and entirely composedcomposed of basalt pillars of that length; it is inclined to the horizon with a small angle, and, when traced from the causeway eastward, ascends obliquely along the face of the precipice. It culminates at about the distance of a mile from the causeway. Its upper surface is now elevated near 25O feet above the level of the sea; proceeding eastward it dips, and finally immerges at Port- inoon, two miles east from the causeway, forming-, at its immersion, the base of two beautiful conical islands. Magnificent as the colonnades may be supposed, which this stratum displays in s...