120 Notes of a Mineralogical Excursion [Fex. . 
no other rock but a sort of loose textured greyish-black one, ap- 
pearing to be basalt or tuff, except here and there some green-stone, 
and a reddish-white stone, having much the same appearance, 
hardness, and specific gravity, as the indurated chaik, with a con- 
choidal fracture, imbedded in the trap near Temple Patrick, about 
eight miles north-west of Belfast. 
Near Coleraine, on the river Bann, which issues from the mag-_ 
nificent Lough Neagh, and-meets the North Sea a little way below 
the above-mentioned town, 12 miles west of the Giant’s Causeway, 
at a fall called the Cuts, is a formation of green-stone. I made 
inquiries with respect to the siliceous petrifactions said to be formed 
by the waters of Lough Neagh, and found that this phenomenon 
was universally believed; but I could not obtain aspecimen. The 
country from Belfast to Coleraine is, in a general view, flat, but it 
is by no means what is called a dead flat. Wavings to a great 
extent strike the eye; and to the east, at a distance, rise large 
conical hills, such as usually characterise a trap district. To the 
west, in the distance, towers the high mountain of Innishoue, 
which. is probably primitive. At Antrim, on the east bank of Lough 
Neagh, where stands also Sheans Castle, the seat of Lord O’Niel, 
the country appeared to me eminently rich and beautiful, as indeed 
the whole route from Belfast to Coleraine, with the exception of a 
few miles between Ballymena and Ballymoney, is rich and fine. 
Here and there, however, notwithstanding this, we have extensive 
bogs, or peat mosses, as they are called in Scotland. 
I left Coleraine on the morning of Sept. 17, in company with a 
gentleman of that place, whose obligingness, intelligence, hospi- 
tality, and kindness, afforded me a most agreeable specimen of the 
Irish character, and proceeded to the Giant’s Causeway. ‘The day 
was charming ; and it is not easy for me to express the gratification 
I felt, as we made our way through a fine and gently varied district, 
at the idea of having it in my power soon to contemplate in favour- 
able circumstances one of the most stupendous and interesting 
natural phenomena that are any where to be seen. From Coleraine 
to the Causeway is eight miles in a northerly direction, and 1 could 
observe no rock-on our way but the trap formation. On crossing the 
river Bush at the village called Bushmills, the country begins gra- 
dually to rise, and we descry about two miles before us a ridge of 
considerable height, seeming to terminate quite abruptly on the 
other side. What we perceive is the land side of the precipice of 
the Giant’s Causeway. It seems to have been a hill of basalt, with 
nearly perpendicular columnar concretions, cut in two, as it were, 
by a vertical section, and the half of the hill next the sea carried 
away. On getting in front of this precipice, which you do by a 
pass on the west side of “it, a most stupendous scene presents itself. 
The precipice, extending for a mile or two along the shore, is in 
many places quite perpendicular, and often 350 and 400 feet high, 
consisting of pure columnar basalt, some of the columns 50 feet in 
perpendicular height, straight and smooth as if polished with a 
