122 Notes of a Mineralogical Excursion [Frs. 
the part of the cliff on which the ashes were lying having given 
way and tumbled down, they have been thus buried beneath the 
ruins and there remain. This hypothesis may appear to some fan- 
ciful or extravagant ; but] should have little hesitation in referring 
the truth of it toany unprejudiced person accustomed to investiga- 
tions of this sort who will be at the trouble to scramble up and 
survey the spot. Nay, I think I could even trust the decision to a 
Huttonian himself! The mass of materials in which the slags and 
ashes are found is clearly moved from its place, and has distinctly 
the appearance of a large slip of loose pieces of rock and soil that 
has been disengaged by means of frost or some otheragent. It may 
have been effected by an earthquake ; or the fire itself may have 
contributed to its own removal by the rents or cracks its heat made 
in the rock on which it stood. It is not a great many years since 
these ashes were noticed. John Corry, one of the most obliging 
and intelligent guides about the place, picked up some of them on 
the beach below, and naturally enough concluding that they came 
from the cliff above, he climbed up and found their repository. One 
gentleman, he informed us, who is well known to have paid much 
attention to the appearances at the Giant’s Causeway, and who has 
written upon the subject, will not yet believe that the ashes are 
found in the place which I have described, but insists (obstinately 
enough, no doubt !) that honest John and his colleagues have put 
the ashes there on purpose to deceive the public! He cannot be 
prevailed upon to scramble up and look at the ashes himself, verify- 
ing, it would seem, the old proverb, which says, that there is no 
one blinder than he who will not see. 
A considerable way from the repository of the ashes and slags, 
and to the east of the Great Causeway, is another curious appear- 
ance. Here, in the pure basalt, 70 or 80 feet from the top of the 
cliff, is a horizontal bed of wood coal eight feet thick. ‘The coal to 
all appearance rests immediately on the basalt below, and the ends 
of perpendicular basaltic columns are seen distinctly to rest on it 
above. The basalt is not in the least changed by the contact of the 
coal, nor the coal by that of the basalt. ‘The coal is very beautiful 
and distinct, and in one place is seen a coalified tree, if I may use 
the word, 10 or 12 inches in diameter running directly in below the 
basalt. 
Within sight of this spot, and about 300 yards to the east of it, 
are the beautifully conspicuous basaltic pillars, 45 feet long, and 
vertical, with the longest ones in the middle, and the others gra- 
dually shortening towards each side like the columns of an organ. 
From this appearance they have received the appropriate name of 
the organ. At the bottom of this cliff, by examining and breaking 
the loose columnar pieces of the rock that have fallen down, we 
found many fine specimens of calcedony, zeolite, and semi-opal. 
These occur in cavities in the basalt. Sometimes the cavity is not 
completely filled with the calcedony or opal; and when that is the 
ease, the empty space is observed to be always the upper part of the 
