48fe PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1747-8. 



6ea was then high : and at low tides it might be seen about 6o feet yet farther, 

 on a descent losing itself in the sea. He also measured the more eastern point 

 540 feet from the cliff, and saw about as much more of it as of the other, when it 

 winds about to the eastward, and is also lost in the water. One may walk on 

 this head on the tops of the pillars to the edge of the water. These pillars are of 

 all ingular shapes, from 3 sides to 8. The eastern point, towards that end where 

 it joins the rocks, terminates for some way in a perpendicular cliff, formed by 

 the upright sides of the pillars, some of which he measured, and found to be 33 

 feet 4 inches in height. They say there are in all 74 different sorts of figures 

 among them. Each pillar consists of several joints or stones lying one upon 

 another, from 6 inches to about a foot in thickness : some of these joints are in 

 the middle so convex, as for those prominences to be nearly quarters of spheres, 

 round each of which is a ledge, on which the stones above them have rested, 

 every stone being concave on the under side, and fitting in the exactest manner 

 on that which lies next below it. The pillars are from one to 2 feet in diameter, 

 and consist most commonly of about 40 joints, most of which separate very 

 easily, though some others, which are more strongly indented into each other, 

 cohere strongly enough to bear being taken away in pairs. 



But the causeway is not, he thinks, the most singular part of this extraordi- 

 nary curiosity, the appearance of the cliffs themselves being yet more surprising ; 

 these and their several strata he examined from the rocks on the other side of a 

 little bay, about half a mile to the east of the causeway. He thence observed, 

 that there runs all the way a stratum from the bottom, of black stone, to the 

 height of about 6o feet, divided perpendicularly at unequal distances by stripes 

 of a reddish stone, looking like cement, and about 4 or 5 inches in thickness. 

 On this there is another stratum of the same black stone, divided from it by a 

 stratum 5 inches thick of the red. Over this another stratum of stone 10 feet 

 thick, divided in the same manner ; then a stratum of the red stone 20 feet 

 deep ; and above that a stratum of upright pillars. Above these pillars lies an- 

 other stratum of black stone 20 feet high ; and above this is again another stratum 

 of upright pillars rising in some places to the top of the cliffs, in others not so 

 high, and in others again above it, where they are called the chimneys. 



This face of the cliffs reaches for 2 computed miles east from the causeway, 

 that is about 3 measured English miles, to the house of Mr. John Stewart, 2 

 miles west of Balintoy. The upper pillars seem to end over the causeway, and 

 he thinks become shorter and shorter as one goes from it, lying between 2 binds 

 of stone like seams of coal, and like those little pillars found in Derbyshire. 

 These binds probably meet together all round, and inclose this extraordinary 

 work of nature ; and if so, the pillars must be very short towards the extre- 

 mities. 



