" cording to Plato's Timoeus, was totally swallowed up by 

 " a prodigious earthquake." 



Here (for we must not press upon the contradictory ac- 

 count, of th€ submersion, in one place, of a part ; in the 

 other, of the ?a//o/e island) we have a complete solution of 

 the difhculty. The volcanos -w^re all in the part called At- 

 lantis; their lavas spread into the part now called Ireland; 

 the former was swallowed rip, but the latter remains. 



JVIr. Whitehurst can also misrepresent facts, with gieat 

 ease apd confidence. The rocks, at Portrush strand, he 

 says,. " consist altogether of masses of black lava, so extremely 

 ", r^lete wkh bladder holes, that^ it perfectly resembles the sco- 

 " riM of iron; and,, therefore, leaves not the least doubt of its 

 " being a voleanic production" (Page 249.) 



These rocks, at Portrush strand, are opposite to my door. 

 I have often examined; them, aaid affirm, they are composed 

 of strata of solid tabic basalt, sometimes thickly studded 

 Avith zeolite: their fracture, like that of other basalt; no 

 resemblance whatsoever to scoria; nor do they contain a 

 single bladder hole. 1 can also assure the reader, that 

 INIr. Whitehurst did not alight from , his horse, to examine 

 these rocks, which, by his own account, so etfectually esta- 

 blish his favourite theory. 



Bladder hole^, or internal cavities, (I pori nell interno,) 

 are admitted,; by most of the, foreign naturalists, to be es- 

 sential to lava. Mr. Kirwan assigns the reason ; as such 

 cavities are the necessary effect of tlie fusion of eartliy sub- 

 stances. Hence it comes, that the advocates for the. igneous 

 Tj ,; origin 



