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worn, nor are their angles less accurate than those of any
pillar in the Causeway. - .
In the early ages of natural history, many ridiculous
questions were proposed relative to this extraordinary
piece of nature’s architecture, which would degrade the
naturalist of the present age; amongst the rest, it was
seriously proposed, as a difficult and important question,
to discover the depth which the Causeway pillars run
perpendicularly into the ground, and in the Encyclopedia
Britannica we find this solemn sentence : “ How deep they
are fixed in the strand was never yet discovered.” But
the modern geologist can assure these sage inquirers, that
the mole or quay, called the Giants’ Causeway, is only
the continuation of a basaltic stratum, whose breadth
may be measured in various parts of the range along the
coast, and is ascertained to be" 45 ‘feet in thickness or
depth. The answer to the query, to what distance does
it extend under water, is not so satisfactory in a
nautical point of view; but it is supposed to obey the
same law here as the stratum to which it belongs is found
to do elsewhere.
The Causeway, whichis entirely composed of basaltic
pillars, isinclined to the horizon in a small angle, and may be
tracedup the cliff‘ in an easterly direction, and culminates
at the distance of one mile from the Causeway, where it
attains the height of 950 feet above the level of the sea.
It still proceeds towards the east, and ultimately im-
merges at Portmore. This is not the grandest nor most
magnificent stratum of basalt: the next stratum but one
to this forms the noblest natural colonnade in the world,
the columns being more perfect in their articulation than
the great columns of Fair Head, and of more collossal
glimeusions than those of the Causeway- H .
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