ON THE BASALTIC COUNTRY IN IRELAND. J^A 



beautiful conical island Beanyn Daana, and is marked in 

 "the views {/)*• 



These last strata, though they have nothing very remark- These lead t# 

 able in themselves, nor contribute much to the beauty of the "" P ortau * 

 facade; yet they exhibit one of the most important facts I 

 am acquainted with in natural history, and which, when at- 

 tentively considered, throws much light on the nature of 

 the operations performed upon our globe since its consolida- 

 tion, and leads us irresistibly to conclusions extraordinary 

 and unexpected. 



The fourth, fifth, and sixth strata reach the top of the. 

 precipice, and vanish together at the waterfall in the north- 

 west corner of Portmoon. When they come to the surface, 

 they turn inland to the westward in long stony ridges; these 

 obstruct the course of the waters in their descent along the 

 inclined plane, formed by the surface of the promontory, 

 and throw them over the precipice in a cascade highly beau- 

 tiful after rain. 



On the facades to the north-west not a trace of them ap- 

 pears, these being entirely formed by the lower strata, 

 which I have not yet noticed ; but at the distance of a mile, 

 at the great depression (already mentioned), the fourth, 

 fifth, and sixth strata, with a narrow stripe of the third, 

 suddenly appear, in their regular posts, their proper order, 

 and with all the characteristic marks peculiar to each sepa- 

 rate stratum. 



In the interval between the depression at Pleskin, and the 

 Gianfs Causeway (about a mile), these three strata often 

 appear in a desultory way on the summit of the precipice, 

 wherever it is of sufficient height to receive them, always 

 preserving their usual thickness, their characters, and their 

 order: so that a person master of the order I am detailing, 

 as he approaches a rising point of the precipice, can tell its 

 strata, and their order, before he is near enough to distin- 

 guish them. 



Seventh Stratum, (d). 



The rude and massive pillars of the sixth stratum pass 7th stratum, 

 into the neater and much longer columns of the seventh, 



* The view of Pleskin wiJl be given in our next. 



without 



