12 
MEMOIR OF THE LATE ROBERT BALL, LL. D. 
more puzzling to gness who or what people raised so vast a fabric. 
There are many other buildings of great magnitude which we saw in 
the island, apparently constructed as places of defence. "What they 
who built them had to lose on so barren a rock, or they who attacked 
to gain, is beyond my ken. 
“ After leaving this building I went to where Thompson and I found 
the Astragalus: it was not; and a fear came over me that we should 
suffer in fame, as Sir Charles Giesecke has done, in finding a plant that 
could never again be discovered. However, I at last made it out in 
considerable quantities, collected it, and sent it to the College Garden, 
where it now grows stoutly. Prom this we visited the breeding-places 
of birds (the Alca tor da, Uria troile, and Larus argentatus), and saw 
them in vast numbers in the act of incubation. We saw where a 
powerful anchor and chain-cable lay at the foot of the rocks, marking 
the place that a stout ship had struck on a few months before. The 
O’Plaherty and many others saw her from the cliff above; she drove 
right on the rocks, and in a few moments nothing was to be seen but 
fragments floating in the waves. With the power of an hundred men, 
they dragged the smaller anchor up the cliff; the larger is so fast 
tangled with its cable in the rocks, that it must stay as a mark of the 
wreck until it rusts away its solitary existence. The O’Plaherty here 
showed us a curious phenomenon : it came on to rain heavily, and he 
told us to sit on the edge of the cliff, and we should not get wet. We 
did so, and found that the rain was thrown over our heads in an arch 
of about five feet high; we did not get a drop. 
“We then went our way for the Seven Churches, ruins of a small 
size, well built, and far surpassing the present erections in the island. 
On our way we gathered sundry curious plants : the maiden-hair ( Adi - 
antum capillus-Veneris), of which capillaire is made, and which the 
Arranites use as a medicinal tea.” 
The O’Plaherty, with the proverbial hospitality and kindness of the 
old Irish gentleman, had expected they would stay at his house, and 
was much disappointed by their refusal. 
“We got to the hotel about 10 o’clock p. m., and, having eaten 
dinner, I forget of what, we went to bed, but not until I had put up 
my plants, and commissioned fellows to work for me in procuring eggs, 
birds for Garden, and specimens of the Echinus lividus. Hot having 
lain down for two nights, save a sort of loll on the hooker’s little deck, 
which a fellow prepared for us by washing or rather softening the filth 
on it with a wet swab, I had a glorious sleep for six hours. Getting 
up, the amiable Dean, seeing it a fine, calm day, insisted on my taking 
advantage of it by dredging for shells. The O’Plaherty joined us, and 
having procured the boat of the Waterguard, we set off towards Straw 
Island, passing over, in the first instance, vast fields of Zostera marina , 
which you may see so often puffed in the papers as Alva marina, su¬ 
perior to hair, &c., for beds. I endeavoured to teach the natives the 
use of it, for it is really useful as a material for bedding; but I doubt 
my lesson was thrown away, the answer, ‘ we never uses it,’ being quite 
