54 The Founders of Geology LECT. 



formed detached eminences, frequently capping hills, and 

 presenting its columns in vertical rows along its edges. 

 There was nothing about it likely in those days to suggest 

 a volcanic origin. The exposures of it usually belonged 

 to a far older geological period than the comparatively 

 recent lava-streams of Auvergne, and in the course of time 

 the cones and craters and scoriae, that no doubt originally 

 marked these sites, had gradually disappeared. 



The Giant's Causeway, too, though it displayed on a 

 far more colossal scale the characteristic structure and 

 scenery of basalt, was equally silent in regard to its origin. 

 The marvels of this part of the coast of Ireland had fre- 

 quently been brought to the notice of the learned, from the 

 latter part of the seventeenth century onward. 1 But here 

 as elsewhere, it was rather the symmetrical structure than 

 the mode of formation that engaged the attention of the 

 older observers. Even as far back as the year 1*756, one 

 of these writers pointed out the remarkable resemblance 

 of certain rocks in Nassau and in the district of Treves 

 and Cologne to the Giant's Causeway, which by that time 

 had become famous. 2 



The western islands of Scotland, which far surpass the 

 Irish coast in the extent and magnificence of their basalt 

 cliffs, were still unknown to the scientific world. The 

 first report about their wonders seems to have reached 

 London in the spring of 1761, when the Bishop of Ossory 



1 See Sir R. B., Phil. Trans., xvii. (1693) p. 708; S. Foley, xviii. 

 (1694) p. 170, with a map and bird's-eye view. T. Molyneux, Ibid. p. 

 181 and xix. (1698) p. 209, with drawings of the columns. R. Pocock, 

 xlv. (1748) p. 124, and xlviii. part i. (1754), with further figures illus- 

 trating the jointing of the columns. 



2 A. Trembly, PhiL Trans, xlix. (1756) p. 581. 



