of the Counties of Deny and Antrim. 197 
pear, in their regular posts, their proper order, and with all 
the characteristic marks peculiar to each separate stratum. 
In the interval between the depression at Pleskin, and the 
Giant’s Causeway (about a mile), these three strata often ap- 
pear in a desultory way on the summit of the precipice, 
wherever it is of sufficient height to receive them, always pre- 
serving their usual thickness, their characters, and their order ; 
so that a person master of the order I am detailing, as he 
approaches a rising point of the precipice, can tell its strata, 
and their order, before he is near enough to distinguish them. 
Seventh Stratum, (d). 
The rude and massive pillars of the sixth stratum pass into 
the neater, and much longer columns of the seventh, without 
interrupting the solidity or continuity of the material ; exactly 
as a down held hand appears to separate into fingers. The 
thickness of this stratum, that is the length of the pillars of 
which it is formed, is fifty-four feet; it is marked ( d ) in the 
two views, and in its passage across the face of the precipice, 
displays more beautiful colonnades than any of the others. 
This seventh stratum emerges from the beach immediately 
behind the south-east point of Portmoon, and where it first 
shews itself in that bay, has its lower edge raised only a few 
feet above the water ; it forms the upper frustum of the larger 
of the two conical islands, ascends obliquely along the face 
of Portmoon, and continues to rise until it composes the upper 
range in the beautiful facade, properly called Bengore Head. 
This is probably the most magnificent of all, its convexity 
towards the sea producing a fine effect. The lower edge of 
this stratum, that is the line forming the base of its pillars, 
