This vast collection of basaltic pillars is in the vicinity of
Ballimony, in the county of Antrim, Ireland. The principal, or grand
causeway, (there being several less considerable and scattered fragments
of a similar nature,) consists of an irregular arrangement of many
hundred thousands of columns, formed of a black rock, nearly as hard as
marble. The greater part of them are of a pentagonal figure, but so
closely and compactly situated on their sides, though perfectly distinct
from top to bottom, that scarcely anything can be introduced between
them. These columns are of an unequal hight and breadth: several of the
most elevated, visible above the surface of the strand, and at the foot
of the impending angular precipice, are of the hight of about twenty
feet, which they do not exceed, at least not any of the principal
arrangement. How deeply they are fixed in the strand, has never yet been
ascertained.
This grand arrangement extends nearly two hundred yards, as it is
visible at low water; but how far beyond is uncertain: from its
declining appearance, however, at low water, it is probable that it does
not reach beneath the water as far as it is seen above. The breadth of
the principal causeway, which runs out in one continued range of
columns, is in general from twenty to thirty feet: in some parts it may,
for a short distance, be nearly forty. From this account are excluded
the broken and scattered pieces of the same kind of construction, which
are detached from the sides of the grand causeway, as they do not appear
to have ever been contiguous to the principal arrangement, although they
have been frequently comprehended in the width, which has led to such
wild and dissimilar representations of this causeway, in the different
accounts that have been given. Its highest part is the narrowest, at the
very spot of the impending cliff, whence the whole projects; and there,
for about the same space in length, its width is not more than from
twelve to fifteen feet. The columns of this narrow part incline from a
perpendicular a little to the westward, and form a slope on their tops,
by the unequal hight of their sides; and in this way a gradual ascent is
made at the foot of the cliff, from the head of one column to the next
above, to the top of the great causeway, which, at the distance of about
eighteen feet from the cliff, obtains a perpendicular position, and
lowering from its general hight, widens to between twenty and thirty
feet, being for nearly three hundred feet always above the water. The
tops of the columns being, throughout this length, nearly of an equal
hight, form a grand and singular parade, which may be walked on,
somewhat inclining to the water’s edge. But from the high-water mark, as
it is perpetually washed by the beating surges at every return of the
tide, the platform lowers considerably, becoming more and more uneven,
so as not to be walked on but with the greatest care. At the distance of
a hundred and fifty yards from the cliffs, it turns a little to the east
for the space of twenty or thirty yards, and then sinks into the sea.
The figure of these columns is, with few exceptions, pentagonal, or
composed of five sides; and the spectator must look very narrowly indeed
to find any of a different construction, having three, four or six
sides. What is very extraordinary, and particularly curious is, that
there are not two columns in ten thousand to be found, which either have
their sides equal among themselves, or display a like figure.
The composition of these columns or pillars, is also deserving the
attention of the curious observer. They are not of one solid stone in an
upright position, but composed of several short lengths, nicely joined,
not with flat surfaces, but articulated into each other like a ball and
socket, or like the joints in the vertebræ of some of the larger kinds
of fish, the one at the joint having a cavity, into which the convex end
of the opposite is exactly fitted. This is not visible unless on
disjointing the two stones. The depth of the concavity or convexity is
generally about three or four inches. It is still further remarkable,
that the convexity and correspondent concavity of the joint, are not
conformable to the external angular figure of the column, but exactly
round, and as large as the size or diameter of the column will admit;
consequently, as the angles of these columns are in general very
unequal, the circular edges of the joints are seldom coincident with
more than two or three sides of the pentagonal, and are, from the edge
of the circular part of the joint to the exterior sides and angles,
quite plain. It ought likewise to be noticed as a singular curiosity,
that the articulations of these joints are frequently inverted, in some
of them the concavity being upward, in others the reverse. This
occasions that variety and mixture of concavities and convexities on the
tops of the columns, which is observable throughout the platform of this
causeway, without any discoverable design or regularity with respect to
the number of either.
The length of these particular stones, from joint to joint, is various:
they are in general from eighteen inches to two feet long; and for the
greater part, longer toward the bottom of the columns than nearer the
top, the articulation of the joints being there somewhat deeper. The
size, or diameter, likewise of the columns, is as different as their
length and figure: in general they are from fifteen to twenty inches in
diameter. Throughout the whole of this combination there are no traces
of uniformity or design, except in the form of the joint, which is
invariably by an articulation of the convex into the concave of the
piece next above or below it: nor are there traces of a finishing in any
part, whether in the hight, length or breadth. If there be particular
instances in which the columns above water have a smooth top, others
near them, of an equal hight, are more or less convex or concave, which
shows them to have been joined to pieces that have been washed away, or
by other means taken off. It can not be doubted but that those parts
which are constantly above water have gradually become more and more
even, at the same time that the remaining surfaces of the joints must
necessarily have been worn smoother, by the constant action of the air,
and by the friction in walking over them, than where the sea, at every
tide, beats on the causeway, continually removing some of the upper
stones, and exposing fresh joints. As all the exterior columns, which
have two or three sides exposed to view, preserve their diameters from
top to bottom, it may be inferred, that such is also the case with the
interior columns, the tops of which alone are visible.
Notwithstanding the general dissimilitude of the columns, relatively to
their figure and diameter, they are so arranged and combined at all the
points, that a knife can scarcely be introduced between them, either at
the sides or angles. It is most interesting to examine the close
contexture and nice insertion of the infinite variety of forms exhibited
on the surface of this grand parade. From the great dissimilarity of the
figures of the columns, the spectator would be led to believe the
causeway a work of human art, were it not, on the other hand,
inconceivable that the genius or invention of man should construct and
combine such an infinite number of columns, which should have a general
apparent likeness, and still be so universally dissimilar in their
figure, as that on the minutest examination, not two in ten or twenty
thousand should be found having their angles and sides equal among
themselves, or those of one column to those of another. As there is an
infinite variety in the configuration of the several parts, so there are
no traces of regularity or design in the outlines of this curious
phenomenon: including the broken or detached pieces of a similar
structure, they are extremely 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.
This singular formation is not confined to the Giant’s Causeway; but to
quite a distance from it, the cliffs 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, upward of sixty feet in hight.
This colonnade is supported on a solid base of coarse, black, irregular
rock, nearly sixty feet thick, abounding in what are called blebs, (that
is, little blisters as it were on the rock,) and also in 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 Causeway.
This lower range is upborne by a layer of red ocher stone, which serves
as a relief to show it to greater advantage. The two admirable natural
galleries, with the interjacent masses of irregular rock, form a
perpendicular hight 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 hight of two
hundred feet, making in all nearly four hundred feet of perpendicular
elevation, and presenting a mass, which for beauty and variety of
coloring, for elegance and novelty of arrangement, and for the
extraordinary magnitude of its objects, can not, perhaps, be rivaled by
anything 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 landscape.
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 hight 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
toward 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.