EXTRAORDINARY NATURAL ARCH. 67 



which has doubtless given origin to its common name of the Cave 

 of Music. 



The basaltic pillars of this cave are of one ingredient only, which is a 

 granular splintery material, resembling clinkstone, highly colored with 

 iron, but a greenish black hue. Between the several pillars has exuded 

 a yellowish substance, producing every where a deep contrast of two 

 distinctly defined colors, which admirably relieves what would otherwise 

 be the sombre aspect of the base. 



The stone is in many places richly colored with light green, yellow and 

 orange, produced by different species of lichen growing on it. "It would 

 be no less presumptuous than useless (says a modern writer), to attempt a 

 description of the picturesque effect of that to which the pencil itself is 

 inadequate. But if this cave were even destitute of that order and 

 symmetry, that richness arising from multiplicity of parts, combined with 

 greatness of dimensions, and simplicity of style which it possesses ; still 

 the prolonged length, the twilight gloom, half concealing the playful and 

 varying effects of reflected light, the echo of the measured surge as it 

 rises and falls, the transparent green of the water, and the profound and 

 fairy solitude of the whole scene, could not fail strongly to impress a mind 

 gifted with any sense of beauty in art or in nature. If to those be added, 

 that peculiar sentiment with which nature, perhaps, most impresses us, 

 when she allows us to draw comparisons between her works and those of 

 art, we shall be compelled to own it is not without cause, that celebrity 

 has been conferred on the Cave ofFingal." 



EXTRAORDINARY NATURAL ARCH. At Hirniskretschen in Bohemia, 

 there is what is called, the Prebischethor. This extraordinary caprice of 

 nature has all the appearance of a triumphal arch of the most colossal 

 proportions; and, being situated in the midst of the wildest secenery, 

 forms, as it were, a frame to the immense picture seen through it in the 

 distance. The top of the arch is upwards of 1,400 feet above the level 

 of the sea ! Nearly adjoining, there is also an isolated rock in the shape 

 of a cone, and an inaccessible chasm 1 ,200 feet in depth. 



