52 
attendiiig the “ clipping ” on another of Mr. Sellar’s farms. The 
son was a fine-looking, stalwart, fair-haired giant, and he acted as 
our guide to the cliffs, and in our ramble over the island. Dr. 
Heddle was in search of minerals, and evidence of the direction of 
the ice-action ; I in search of the j^icturesque and bird-life. In 
both objects our guide proved of great assistance, notwithstanding 
his misfortune. 
After taking some refreshment, we ascended Garbh-eilean to the 
north-west of the cottage, crossing first over the shingle isthmus, 
where Heddle, with our guide’s assistance, found some water-rolled 
pebbles foreign to the geology of the island. We reached the top 
by a rude flight of steps cut in the lower part of the decayed 
basaltic rock, and by a steep slope of some 300 to 350 feet. We 
walked through an almost continuous colony of Puffins, which 
bird inhabits all the slopes and tufty patches, ledges of the cliffs, 
and devices of the debris round the island, occupying every 
available nook and cranny from the tops of the cliffs almost to the 
sea-level. 
The cliffs along the north side of Garbh-eilean are 499 feet high, 
and the summit of the island 23 feet more.* The cliffs me 
basaltic,! and more than 27 times higher than those of the Cnoc 
of Staffa, and very grand indeed in their massive simplicity and 
swelling contour. In two places the pillars reach in unbroken 
grandeur from the summit to the sea, but in most parts are inter- 
rupted by a long slope of fallen debris, and broken columns at the 
base. At one place where the cliffs form a semicircular concave 
sweep, with a dip in their height — or rather to the west of this 
point the Sea Eagle has long remained undisturbed in its eyrie, 
which is said to be — and has every appearance of being — perfectly 
By Di. Ileddle’s aneroid : thus showing a difference of only two feet 
from Macculloch’s estimate {pp. cit. p. 324). 
t Loid Teignmouth says {op. cit. p. 168) : — “ The merit of the discovery 
of the basaltic character of the Shiant Isles has been already attributed to 
Dr. Clarke. Chalmers describes these islands without referring to it and 
Pennant says, that the most northern basalt which he was aware of was 
that of the Brishmeal Hill in Sky. It is remarkable, that the ba.sa!tic 
stratification proceeds almost in one meridian from the Giant’s Causeway in 
Ire’and, through Mull, Stafla, and some smaller islands ; Sky, from its 
southern to its northern coast, and the Shiant Isles to the distant Ferro.” 
