The Giant's Cave. 149 



summit of the rock, downwards, to within about twenty feet of the open- 

 ing, across which space none but an expert craigsraan would venture to 

 pass. 



The entrance to the cave is abrupt 3 it is in the form of a rudely-arched 

 portal, ten feet high by thirteen broad, and perfectly level at the bottom. 

 Upon entering, the breadth remains nearly the same for some distance ; 

 but after advancing for nine feet, the roof rises suddenly, and losing its 

 semicircular form, resembles the commencement of a fissure, but stops at 

 a height of eighteen feet. At twenty feet from the entrance, the cave 

 suddenly becomes narrower, and divides into th-ee cavities ; of these the 

 longest and the lowest, is the continuation of the line of the great cave; it 

 retains nearly the same width, but the floor descends about four feet, and 

 the roof, gradually curving downwards, terminates the cavity somewhat 

 abruptly, at a distance of forty-nine feet south-east from the great entrance. 

 The two other cavities are smaller than the last ; they lie, one above the 

 other, on the western side ; the lower one, about six feet from the ground, 

 and about six feet high, being separated from the upper one, which closely 

 resembles it, by a roof of rock. These two cavities opening, the one a little 

 above tlie floor, and the other almost on a level with the roof, after passing 

 on a few feet backwards, unite to form a passage, which being three feet 

 wide by three high, ascends gently in a straight line twenty-eight feet. 

 This passage is very dark, and its floor, like that of the rest of the cave, is 

 covered with soil, through which the rock now and then appears. Upon 

 its western side, a foot before its sudden termination in a cul de sac, is a 

 small orifice a foot and a half wide by two and a half high, which opens 

 immediately into a small and nearly circular chamber, about three feet high 

 by five feet diameter, and much resembling, both in size, shape, and tem- 

 perature, an oven. In the north-western side of this chamber, which 

 cannot be above a yard from the exterior of the western face of the rock, 

 are two fissures, one of which is occupied by the root and part of the stem 

 of a large ivy tree ; and the other was too small to be entered, but shewed 

 a glimpse of the day-light. 



The floor of the cave is strewed with earth and decomposed animal and 

 vegetable matter, in some places to a depth of three feet. Below this, 

 the rock is covered with a layer of stalagmite, masses of which were re- 

 moved with a pickaxe, but were not found to contain any bones. The 

 walls and roofs are incrusted with a similar deposit, not descending in re- 

 gular stalactites, but forming, as is frequently the case, an incrustation of 

 about an inch thick. 



Upon some parts of the cave, and more especially upon the western wall, 

 18 a dark-looking substance, resembling a bituminous exudation ; some of 

 this was scraped off, and is now in the museum of the Institution. It 

 appears, upon a closer inspection, to be a species of lichen. 



'i'he exterior forty feet of the rock in which the cave is wrought, betrays 



No. 3.— Vol. I. 



