A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 4 1 



pillars of the Scuir ; for we find M'Culloch, in his descrip- 

 tion, ingeniously analyzing it. " The resemblance to archi- 

 tecture here is much increased," he says, " by the columnar 

 structure, which is sufficiently distinguishable even from a 

 distance, and produces a strong effect of artificial regularity 

 when seen near at hand. To this vague association in the 

 mind of the efforts of art with the magnitude of nature, is 

 owing much' of that sublimity of character which the Scuir 

 presents. The sense of power is a fertile source of the sub- 

 lime ; and as the appearance of power exerted, no less than 

 that of simplicity, is necessary to confer this character on ar- 

 chitecture, so the mind, insensibly transferring the operations 

 of nature to the efforts of art where they approximate in cha- 

 racter, becomes impressed with a feeling rarely excited by her 

 more ordinary forms, where these are even more stupendous." 

 The top of the Scuir, more especially towards its eastern 

 termination, resembles that of some vast mole not yet level- 

 led over by the workmen ; the pavement has not yet been 

 laid down ; and there are deep gaps in the masonry, that run 

 transversely from side to side, still to fill up. Along one of 

 these ditch-like gaps, which serves to insulate the eastern and 

 highest portion of the Scuir from all its other portions, we 

 find fragments of a rude wall of uncemented stones, the re- 

 mains of an ancient hill-fort ; which, with its natural rampart 

 of rock on three of its four sides, more than a hundred yards 

 in sheer descent, anji with its deep ditch and rude wall on 

 the fourth, must have formed one of the most inaccessible in 

 the kingdom. The masses of pitchstone atop, though so in- 

 tensely black within, are weathered on the surface into almost 

 a pure white : and we found lying detached among them, frag- 

 ments of common amygdaloid and basalt, and minute slaty 

 pieces of chalcedony that had formed apparently in fissures 

 of the trap. We would have scrutinized more narrowly at 

 the time had we expected to find anything more rare ; but I 



