ON THE BASALTIC COUNTRY IN IRELAND. 171 



lower frustum of the great conical island Beanyn Daana, EeanynDaan** 

 and the whole of the smaller, except the base ; it is well 

 displayed over the remainder of the precipice, it forms the 

 intermediate stratum between the magnificent colonnades at 

 both Bengore and Pleskin, and finally is lost just over the 

 Giant's Causeway. Large globular fragments have fallen 

 from it, aud are scattered about the causeway. 



Ninth Stratum, [I). 



This stratum is forty-four feet thick, that being the exact 9th stratum* 

 length of the neat pillars composing it; at its emersion it 

 forms the bases of the two conical islands in Portmoon, and 

 is no more seen in that bay, but immediately to the north- 

 ward it begins to show itself in colonnades and groups, some 

 of them resembling castles and towers. 



It ascends along the precipice obliquely, like those above 

 it, forms the lower range at Bengore and Pleskin, from 

 which last it dips to the westward regularly, composes the 

 group at Port Noffer, called the Organs, seen from the The Organs* 

 causeway, and finally at itsUmmersion, or intersection with 

 the plane of the sea, it forms the beautiful assemblage of 

 neat pillars., so long distinguished by the name of the Giant's 

 Causeway. 



At these two intersections, each of them accessible by 

 land and water, the prisms exactly resemble each other in 

 grain, size, and neatness ; the interval between them is full 

 two miles, through great part of which this stratum is dis- 

 played at different heights; it culminates between Pleshhi 

 and Bengore, with its lower edge more than two hundred 

 feet above the water. 



We see now what a diminutive portion of our vast ba- 

 saltic mass has, until lately, monopolized the attention of 

 the curious; and even after it was discovered, that we had 

 many other, and much finer collections of pillars on the 

 same promontory, it never occurred to those who were pre- 

 paring to give accounts of them to the public, to examine 

 whether these were mere desultory groups, or detached 

 parts of a grand and regular whole, which a more compre- 

 hensive view of the subject would soon have laid open to 

 them. * 



Tenth 



