114 On the basaltic Surface of the Counties 



tical planes, cutting down, occasionally, the accumulations 

 of our strata; the upper part of these facades is generally 

 perpendicular, the lower steep and precipitous. 



7. The bases of our precipices commonly extend a con- 

 siderable way into the sea; between the water and the foot 

 of the precipice, (and especially near the latter,) there is fre- 

 quently exhibited the wildest and most irregular scene of 

 confusion, by careless observers supposed to be formed by 

 the ruins of the precipice above, which have fallen down : 

 such, no doubt, was Mr. Whitehurst's idea, when he de- 

 scribes one of these scenes as " an awful wreck of the terra- 

 queous globe." 



But a more attentive observer will soon discover that 

 these capricious irregularities, whether in the form of rude 

 cones, as at Beany n Daana, and the west side of Pleskln ; 

 or towers, as at the dyke of Port Cooan and Castro Levit, at 

 the foot of Magilligan facade, even spires and obelisks, as 

 to the westward of Kenlaan, and at the Bull of Rat kim ; 

 yet all of these once formed part of the original mass of 

 coast, stratified like it, and their strata still correspond in 

 material and inclination with those in the contiguous pre- 

 cipice. 



8. These vertical sections or abruptions of our strata are 

 by no means confined to the steeps that line our coast ; the 

 remaining boundary of our basaltic area has several of them 

 equally grand ; and similar abruptions, or sections, (though 

 not bo deep,) are scattered over a great part of our area, and 

 especially on the ridges of our hills and mountains which are 

 cut down in many places like a stair, by the sudden abrup- 

 tion of the basaltic stratum. 



9 Wherever the strata are thus suddenly cut oft", whether 

 it b*jg a ruasfi of aecumulated strata as in the facades on our 

 • coast, or solitary strata in the interior; the materials on one 

 side of the abruption are completely carried away, without 

 a fragment being left behind, while on ii^> other side the un- 

 touched stratum remains entire and undisturbed. 



I shall not proceed to apply these facts to support, or in- 

 validate, any of the numerous theories whieh have given 

 rist to io much controversy, in which I myself (as you 



know) 



