VOL. XLV,] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4&Q 



He was led to this conjecture by the following observations: the lower stratum 

 of pillars is that which goes by a descent into the sea, and which makes what is 

 called the Giants' Causeway: and where this descent approaches the sea, it seems 

 probable that the pillars become shorter and shorter, so as to end not much far- 

 ther off. Now the upper bind of this stratum may have been of so soft a nature, 

 as by degrees, in process of time, to have been washed away by the sea. And in 

 the cliff over the causeway are several pillars lying along in a rude manner almost 

 horizontally, which seemed to be some of the pillars of the upper stratum fallen 

 down by the giving way of the bind which was under them, and over the lower 

 ones that compose the causeway. And here most probably the upper pillars 

 ended, as they are seen no farther in the cliff. He saw the tops of pillars even 

 with the shore, both on the east and west sides of the causeway, and some 

 much lower than the causeway itself; and it is probable that these are much 

 shorter than those of the causeway, which he measured above 30 feet higher 

 than the tops of them. 



When on the causeway, he saw in the cliff, to the south-east, vvhat they call 

 the Organs, about a quarter of a mile off, and a third part of the way up the 

 cliff. They appeared small, and somewhat like a black stalactites : they were 

 not commonly known to be such pillars as the others ; but they are so, and be- 

 long to the lower stratum. When with great difficulty he climbed up the steep 

 hill to them, he found they were hexagonal, and larger pillars than most of the 

 others, being about 2 feet in diameter ; and he measured 5 sides of one of them, 

 which were of 13, 15, 12, 21, and l6 inches respectively. The joints he could 

 come at were about Q inches thick, and each pillar consisted of between 40 or 50 

 of them : these joints are almost flat and plain, the convexities on their upper 

 faces being so small as to be scarcely discernible. He inquired whether any of 

 these pillars were found in the quarries within land, and the people there told 

 him they were not ; but he has since been assured by others, that there are some 

 found 2 or 3 miles from the shore. 



Of a Metalline Thermometer. By Maurice Johnson, Esq. President of the Gen- 

 tlemen's Society at Spalding. N° 485, p. 128. 



This machine, placed in the Gentlemen's Society of Spalding, was the inven- 

 tion of the late Mr. Samuel Frotheringham, a grazier at Holbeach in Elloe Hol- 

 land, Lincolnshire. He and Mr. John Ingram of the same place, watch-maker 

 and whitesmith, whose father, originally a blacksmith at Cowbitt, and inventoi 

 of the machine for cutting watch-wheels, was also a most accurate artificer, hav- 

 ing made and fixed up in the Spalding Museum this metal thermometer, which 

 on experience and observation, was found to answer and go truly. 



This thermometer was composed of an upright bar a, fig. 4, pi. Q, of the best 



3 N 2 



