10 STAFFA. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 



to apply the plumb line to them, this point must remain 

 undetermined. 



The columns can only be called straight when con- 

 sidered in a collective view, since their wavings and bend- 

 ings are such that no individual perhaps is perfectly so, 

 although there is a general air of parallelism throughout the 

 whole. This is nevertheless widely removed from that geo- 

 metrical aspect with which they are commonly represented 

 in drawings. In this respect indeed they fall very short 

 even of the regularity of the Giant's causeway. Near 

 the Buachaille, a part of the principal range is to be 

 seen, considerably bent at the top, the convexities of 

 the pillars being outwards. The columns of the faade 

 do not materially differ in thickness, and two feet may 

 perhaps be considered as the most frequent diameter. 

 Their aspect is therefore tolerably regular ; but the frac- 

 tures of some and the partial and secondary lights which 

 are caught by others, in consequence of the occasional 

 clustering of the pillars and the undulations of the front, 

 prevent them, as much x>r more than their uneven out- 

 lines, from having that air of architectural regularity 

 which I have censured in the published representations. 

 They are very irregular in the number and position 

 of their joints. Frequently, they are entire throughout : 

 sometimes they have slight marks of joints, or even 

 occasionally a decided one; while in other places these 

 are not only numerous and decided, but notched in the 

 usual manner by the truncation of their angles. The 

 forms of the joints and the number of the sides are 

 easily examined in that part which I have termed the 

 causeway. Their surfaces are sometimes curved, with 

 the concave sides placed indifferently upwards or down- 

 wards, at other times they are straight, and now and 

 then they are undulated and uneven. Besides these 

 true joints, they are often cracked by oblique fissures, 

 which on a near view detract much from their regular 

 aspect. In the number of sides they vary, as all basaltic 



