162 - Maclure's Letters. 



ed to have claims to the soil, and who would not permit a 

 rock to be taken from it, or any depredation, as they termed 

 it, to be committed- I now send you a small box of speci- 

 mens, though imperfect, from the constant rain during my 

 Stay at the Causeway. They may serve as a comparison 

 with others, although I do not perceive any great difference 

 from other Basaltic regions which I have seen, exccj;t the 

 articulations of the pillars, which are peculiar to the Giant's 

 Causeway. The same arrangement, in ridges long and nar- 

 row in proportion to their length, the porous rock always on 

 the summit of the ridge, and the compact Basalt at the bot- 

 tom. Where they come in contact wjth any combustible, such 

 as coals, tliese are charred from three to four feet from the 

 junction, &c. he. &lc. Through all this country the Basalt 

 generally covers a stratum of white limestone, filled with 

 flints, with much the same petrified shells as are to be found 

 in the chalk. 



Ihave left the box W. M. No. 21, with Mr. James M' Adam, 

 avery active member of a society lately established here for 

 Natural History, and supported by a number of industrious 

 young men. who will forward it to New-York, care of Col. 

 Gibbs. If you consider it useful to the Geological Society 

 to have one of the pillars of articulated Basalt, or any other 

 mineral this country can afford, by your forwarding them a (ew 

 du .'Hcate specimens, desiring them to make a return of what 

 you renuire, 1 have no doubt but an exchange mutually be- 

 neficial might be established, as it is a society in a state of 

 progressive improvement, which promises much ; and being 

 comuosed of young men. unincumbered with the prt^judices 

 of age, more may be expected from them than from old soci- 

 eties confined within the limits of etiquette and formality. 



I am highly gratified with the progress of civilization \a 

 this count'-y, more particularly in this place, in which the im- 

 provement has been, and still continues (o be rapid, and which 

 resembles more a town in the United States, for new streets and 

 houses, than any place I have seen in Europe. The attention 

 of ma'iy of the most liberal and influential men to the edu- 

 cation of the millions of the productive class, is more than I 

 expected to find anywhere in aristocratic Europe. The im- 

 provement of old, and the estaMishinv of new schools, shows a 

 public spirit well directed, that ought to be imitated by no 

 country more than our own. Where the genera! mass rules, 

 the diffusion of knowledge is positively necessary for the 



