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the top. The width of the chasm, at the northern extremity, is about 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 clilf, 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 contributmg 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 tlie 
same side of the hill, several other fissures of inferior dimensions are said to 
have existed ; but they have been filled up to prevent slieep 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 difiicult 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 Finnich 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 through 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 coloui' 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 
