44 ABOUT VOLCANOS AND EARTHQUAKES. 



starch by the contraction or shrinkage, and consequent 

 splitting, of the material in drying ; and resulting in those 

 picturesque and singular landscape-features called basaltic 

 colonnades : when brought up to day by sudden or 

 gradual upheaval, and broken into cliffs and terraces by 

 the action of waves, torrents, or weather. Those grand 

 specimens of such colonnades which Britain possesses 

 in the Giant's Causeway of Antrim, and the cave of 

 Fingal in Staffa, for instance, are no doubt extreme out- 

 standing portions of such a vast submarine lava-flood 

 which at some inconceivably remote epoch occupied the 

 whole intermediate space ; affording the same kind of 

 evidence of a former connexion of the coasts cf Scotland 

 and Ireland as do the opposing chalk cliffs of Dover and 

 Boulogne of the ancient connexion of France with 

 Britain. Here and there a small basaltic island, such 

 as that of Rathlin, remains to attest this former conti- 

 nuity, and to recall to the contemplative mind that sub- 

 lime antagonism between sudden violence and persever- 

 ing effort, which the study of geology impresses in every 

 form of repetition. 



(57.) There exists a very general impression that earth- 

 quakes are preceded and ushered in by some kind of 

 preternatural, and, as it were, expectant calm in the 

 elements ; as if to make the confusion and desolation 

 they create the more impressive. The records of such 

 visitations which we possess, however striking some par- 

 ticular cases of this kind may appear, by no means bear 

 out this as a general fact, or go to indicate any particular 

 phase of weather as preferentially accompanying their 



