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the top. The width of the chasm, at the northern extremity, is abont ten 

 feet and a half, and it gradually narrows to about four feet at the other, 

 widening out a little at the top. The length is about 350 feet, but may 

 have been originally about ten feet more, as the extremities of the wall 

 appear to be considerably disintegrated. Its depth was found at one point 

 to be forty feet, but it contains a large quantity of debris from the upper 

 part of the hill. The opposite walls are on the same level, and many of the 

 angles are as sharp as if the rent had been the work of yesterday. This is, 

 no doubt, owing to their sheltered position. On looking outside the main 

 wall of the chasm, which is broken through in one or two places, a line of 

 huge blocks of rock is seen extended along the face of the cliff, and tumbled 

 together in rugged confusion. Various conjectures have been advanced as to 

 the cause of the fissure, some supposing it the result of a convulsive movement 

 of the earth's crust, while others, who have never visited the Whangie, have 

 suggested the idea that it may originally have been a crevice containing, in the 

 manner of a gash vein, softer rock matter which has been carried off by aqueous 

 or atmospheric agency. The Whangie might, no doubt, have been the result 

 of local convulsion, but there is no evidence in the appearance of its opposite 

 walls of a violent upthrow or downthrow of either, or of any such matter ever 

 having been present. It seems from the first to have existed as an open 

 fissure, and its position forbids the idea that it ever formed the channel of a 

 flow of water. The most tenable hypothesis is that the subsidence of the 

 sandstone, which appears, where exposed, to be of a thin-bedded and friable 

 nature, may have left a long ledge of the overlying bed of trap without support, 

 causing it to part gradually from the main body of the rock by its own weight, 

 the accumulation of water in the fissure probably contributing to the result ; 

 but while it is evident that a large mass of the rock has been rent from the 

 main body of the hill, it does not appear, from the corresponding sides, to have 

 sunk to a much lower level, and this can be well seen near the middle, where 

 the fractured sides are most perfect. A little farther to the north, on the 

 same side of the hill, several other fissures of inferior dimensions are said to 

 have existed ; but they have been filled up to prevent sheep from falling into 

 them. One, however, is still partially open, and may extend about 100 feet 

 along the hill-side, with a width of about four feet at its northern end. Like 

 the large rent, it lies north and south. It is difficult to account for these 

 fissures, even by attributing them to subsidence, for the hill is in no place very 

 precipitous, and the party could see no evidence of the rock having been 

 undermined either by aqueous or atmospheric agency. Leaving the grey, 

 weather-beaten rocks of the Whangie and their speculations as to its origin 

 behind, the excursionists wended their way to a point where the omnibuses 

 were waiting, and proceeded to Fiunich Glen. To those who have never seen 

 this romantic glen, it would be difficult in words to convey an adequate idea 

 of the grandeur of its scenery. It may be doubted if there be another glen in 

 the West of Scotland that can at all compare with it. The mountain stream, 

 in its descent to the valley of the Blane, has, for a long succession of ages, been 

 gradually cutting its way, till it has attained a depth of about 100 feet. The 

 walls of the glen are nearly vertical, and it would have been next to impossible 

 to descend safely to the bed of the stream, had not the proprietor, Mr. Black- 

 burn, of Killearn, considerately made a stair of about ninety steps througli a 

 rift in the rock for the accommodation of the visitors who frequent this romantic 

 glen. The walls are in many places not more than from ten to twenty feet 

 apart, and clothed with beautiful ferns and other cryptogamic plants of greenest 

 hue, which harmonise delightfully with the bright red colour of the sandstone. 

 The stream has scooped out a series of deep round cavities in the softer layers 

 of rock all along its course, adding to the fairy-like features of this charming 



