scattered and confused. Whatever may have been their original state, they do not at present appear to have any connection with the grand or principal causeway, as to any supposable design or use in its first construction; and as little design can be inferred from the figure or position of the several constituent parts.

The cliffs, at a great distance from the causeway, exhibit in many parts similar columns. At the depth of ten or twelve feet from the summit of the cape of Bengore the rock begins to assume a columnar tendency, and forms a range of massy pillars of basalt, which stand perpendicular to the horizon, presenting in the sharp face of the promontory, the appearance of a magnificent gallery or colonnade, upwards of sixty feet in height. This colonnade is supported on a solid base of coarse, black, irregular rock, nearly sixty feet thick, abounding in blebs and air holes; but, though comparatively irregular, it evidently affects a peculiar figure, tending in many places to run into regular forms, resembling the shooting of salts and many other substances during a hasty crystallization. Beneath this great bed of stone, stands a second range of pillars from forty to fifty feet high, more exactly defined, and emulating in the neatness of its columns, those of the Giant's Cause way. This lower range is upborne by a layer of red ochre stone, which serves as a relief to shew it to greater advantage. The two admirable natural galleries, with the interjacent masses of irregular rock, form a perpendicular height of one hundred and seventy feet, from the base of which the promontory, covered with rock and grass, slopes down to the sea a considerable space, so as to give an additional height of two hundred feet, making in all nearly four hundred feet of perpendicular elevation, and presenting a mass, which for beauty and variety of colouring, for elegance and novelty of arrangement, and for the extraordinary magnitude of its objects, cannot, perhaps, be rivalled by any thing at present known.

The promontory of Fairhead raises its lofty summit more than four hundred feet above the level of the sea, and forms the eastern termination of Ballycastle bay. It presents a vast compact mass of rude columnar stones, the forms of which are extremely gross, many being a hundred and fifty feet in length. At the base of these

gigantic columns lies a wild waste of natural ruins of an enormous size, which, in the course of successive ages, have been tumbled down from their foundations by storms, or some more powerful operations of nature. These massive bodies have occasionally withstood the shock of their fall, and often lie in groups, and clumps of pillars, resembling artificial ruins, and forming a very novel and striking land

scape.

Many of these pillars lie to the east, in the very bottom of the bay, at the distance of about one-third of a mile from the causeway. There the earth has evidently fallen away from them upon the strand, and exhibits a very curious arrangement of pentagonal columns, in a perpendicular position, apparently supporting a cliff of different strata of earth, clay, rock, &c. to the height of a hundred and fifty feet. Some of these columns are from thirty to forty feet high, from the top of the sloping bank beneath them; and being longer in the middle of the arrangement, shortening on either of the sides, have obtained the appellation of organs, from a rude likeness in this particular to the exterior or frontal tubes of that instrument. As there are few broken pieces on the strand, near this assemblage of columns, it is probable that the outside range, as it now appears, is in reality the original exterior line towards the sea; but how far these columns extend internally into the bowels of the incumbent cliff is unknown. The very substance, indeed, of that part of the cliff which projects to a point, between the two bays on the east and west of the causeway, seems composed of similar materials; for, besides the many pieces which are seen on the sides of the cliff, as it winds to the bottom of the bays, particularly on the eastern side, there is at the very point of the cliff, and just above the narrow and highest part of the causeway, a long collection of them, the heads or summits of which Just appearing without the sloping bank, make it evident that they lie in a sleeping position, and about half-way between the perpendicular and horizontal. The heads of these columns are likewise of mixed surfaces, convex and concave; and they evidently appear to have been removed from their original upright position, to the inclining or oblique one they have now assumed, by the sinking or falling of the cliff.

BASALTIC COLUMNS.

In the country surrounding Padua, in the State of Ven ice, there are several basaltic columns, similar to those of the Giant's Causeway, although less magnificent in appearance. About seven miles in a southern direction, from that city, is a hill named Monte Rosso, or the Red Mount, which presents a natural range of prismatic columns, of different shapes and sizes, placed in a direction nearly perpendicular to the horizon, and parallel to each other, nearly resembling that part of the Giant's Causeway, called The Organs."

At an inconsiderable distance is another basaltine hill, called Il monte del Diavolo, or the Devil's Hill, along the sides of which prismatic columns are arranged in an oblique position. This causeway extends along the side of the vale beneath, nearly with the same arrangement of the columns as is displayed on the hill. Although the columns of both these hills are of the simple, or unjointed kind, still they differ very remarkably from each other in many respects, but principally in their forms, and in the texture and quality of their parts. Those of the Monte del Diavolo commonly approach a circular form, as nearly as their angles will allow; which is also observable in the columns of the Giant's Causeway, and of most other basaltic groups. On the contrary, those of Monte Rosso assume an oblong or oval figure. The columns of the former measure, one with the other, nearly a foot in diameter, varying but little in their size; while those of the latter present a great variety in their dimensions, the diameter of some of them being nearly a foot, and that of others scarcely three inches: their common width may be estimated at six or eight inches. They differ, therefore, very considerably in size from those of the Giant's Causeway, some of which mea sure two feet in width. The length of the columns of the Monte del Diavolo cannot be ascertained, as they present their summits only to the view: their remaining parts are deeply buried in the hill, and in some places entirely covered. Those of Monte Rosso, as far as they are visible, measure from six to eight or ten feet in height-an incon

siderable size when compared with the height of those of the Giant's Causeway. The columns of the Venetian groupes display, however, all the varieties of prismatic forms, which are observable in those of the latter, and other similar groups. They are usually of five, six or seven sides; but the hexagonal form seems chiefly to prevail.

The texture and quality of these columns are not less different than their forms. Those of the Monte del Diavolo present a smooth surface, and, when broken, appear within of a dark iron-grey colour, manifesting also a very solid and uniform texture; in which characters they correspond with the columns of the Giant's Causeway, and those of most other basaltic groups. But the columns of Monte Rosso are in these respects very different, they having not only a very rough, and sometimes knotty, surface, but displaying likewise, when broken, a variegated colour and unequal texture of parts. They are commonly speckled, more or less distinctly, and resemble an inferior sort of granite, of which Monte Rosso is itself formed, and which serves as a base to the range of columns in question. It is, in general, not quite so hard as the Alpine and Oriental granites, and is sometimes even friable. This species of granite abounds in Ee where large tracts of it are to be seen in the adjoining provinces of Auvergne, Vivarez, and Lionnois. But it is still more common in Italy, seeing that, besides Monte Rosso, the bulk of the Euganean hills, of which that is a part, principally consists of it; and these hills occupy a considerable tract in the plains of Lombardy. It is also common in the Roman and Tuscan States; and of this substance the mountain close to Viterbo, on the road to Rome, is entirely composed. The columns of Monte Rosso appear, therefore, of a different character from any hitherto described by mineralogists, who mention those only of an uniform colour and texture. But the great singularity here is, that such a range of prismatic columns should be found, bedded as it were, in a mass of granite, and composed nearly of the same substance. An instance of this kind, relative to any other causeway, is not recorded; and this circumstance seems to render that of Monte Rosso, in one respect at least, more curious and singular than the celebrated Giant's Causeway is known to be, from the regular articulation of