THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY.

DUE south of Staffa, eighty or ninety miles across the sea, and forming almost the north-eastern extremity of Ireland, we find another magnificent collection of basaltic columns, called the Giant's Causeway.

Indeed, the whole coast of the neighbourhood, and the opposite island of Rathlin, abound with these wonderful specimens of nature's architecture:-column piled against column, in every variety of combination, accurately chiselled, and in various forms, (some grand, and some grotesque,) by no human architect:-there they stand, as they have stood for thousands of years, a barrier against the Atlantic's stormy billows, which, winter after winter, vainly against

those adamantine pillars roll, and roar, and dash their angry

spray.

And yet these appear but to be the relics of a mightier pile, if geologists reason truly. "Those," says Dr. James Johnson, in his Irish Tour, "who have explored Staffa, on one side of the Channel, and the Columnæ Gigantis, on the other, must have come to the conclusion, that these are merely the elevated extremities of a huge chain of basaltic pillars, stretching under the ocean, from the coast of Argyll to that of Antrim. One portion of this stupendous bridge, or causeway, still stands in the midst of a boisterous ocean —namely, the Island of Rathlin, exhibiting the same formation, and presenting perpendicular cliffs of two or three hundred feet in height, to the foaming surge. The Irish extremity of this mighty bridge, or partition, is on an infinitely grander scale than the Scottish. The pillars of Staffa are mere dwarfs compared with their brethren, the Irish giants, on the opposite shore. The basaltic columns of the Antrim coast rise to a stupendous altitude, and

present a greater variety of grotesque, majestic, and fantastic figures than the clouds of an autumnal sky during a radiant setting of the sun." “How long this fire-formed barrier, between two boisterous seas-this volcanic chain of connexion between two distant coasts, resisted the warfare of winds and waves, no record will ever be found. Nothing now remains on either shore but enormous masses and countless myriads of basaltic columns, wedged into causeways, piled into cliffs, hollowed into caverns, bent into arches, and arched into temples."

The Giant's Causeway itself is a natural mole or quay, jutting out into the sea, and paved with the smooth and flat tops of many-sided columns, whose sharp angles and smooth sides fit so accurately one against the other, that the blade of a knife can hardly be introduced between them. It is as if by some giant power a vast number of enormous piles had been driven into the bed of the sea, their tops levelled, and the whole petrified. The causeway consists of three distinct portions, the lowest of which is only seen at low

water, and is about a thousand feet in length; the others are somewhat shorter. As at Staffa, the columns consist of various regular geometrical figures, having from three to eight sides; but the general form is hexagonal.

The cliffs of all the coasts in these seas are frequented at particular seasons of the year by immense flocks of seabirds; as the gull, the cormorant, the eider-duck, and the puffin. These, and many other species, in countless numbers, frequent the clefts and ledges of the rocks which overhang the sea, and from their giddy height they glide on smooth, extended wing, and skim along the ever-restless surface of the mighty deep, in search of that food which still, as in the dawn of time, "the waters bring forth abundantly." To these retreats the venturous inhabitants of the coasts follow them, with many devices: sometimes from a boat, at the foot of the cliffs, some bold climber will ascend the rock, and clinging to its face, find dangerous footing in search of his game. At others, he and his confederates will take a rope to the top of the cliff, and let each other

down, while the sea is tossing at a giddy depth below, and he is dangling in mid air, with the frightened birds screaming around the intruder. The eggs and flesh of the birds serve them for food; the feathers are sold, and some-especially the small, downy feathers from the of the eider-duck-are in great request and obtain high prices.