rations on
foot. This gallery, or causeway, which runs along the eastern side of
the cave, is about two feet in width, and consists of the bases of
broken pillars, whose dark purple hexagons, cemented together by
crystallizations or a white calcareous deposit, form a rough mosaic
flooring. The inequality of its surface, and the fact that the stones
are worn smooth and slippery by the action of the sea, render it a very
precarious pathway; and as soon as we have proceeded far enough to
gratify our curiosity and obtain satisfactory points of view, we are
content to abandon the enterprise of penetrating to the remotest depths,
preferring to reserve our time for a ramble over the exterior surface of
the island.

Emerging from the cavern and skirting its eastern side, we still find
ourselves stepping from hexagon to hexagon over a massive bed of refuse
material, and gazing upward at the columnar wall on our left which
upholds the table-land of the island. No traveller, however ignorant or
inappreciative of science, can fail to realize the immense interest
which these evidences of some great natural convulsion must possess for
the geologist; and a knowledge of the recent geological discoveries in
this and other of the Western Islands is not needed to impress us with
the conviction that treasures of truth are beneath and around us
everywhere, waiting to be revealed. But we have not the key, nor can we
pause to pick the lock.

Passing on, then, in our ignorance, but not without an awe of things
unknown, we recognize as within the scope of our comprehension two
broken pillars so lodged as to constitute the seat and back of a rude
chair, which has received the name of Fingal's Chair, and beyond this
the Clamshell Cave, so called from the curved form of the mass of
basaltic pillars at its entrance; and at length we attain a point where,
by scaling a rough staircase constructed for the convenience of
tourists, we gain the grassy summit of the island. So perpendicular is
the cliff at every point, that, these green slopes once reached, the
previous singularity of formation and wildness of scenery at once give
place to the pastoral. Rocks, columns, caves, and cliffs are all hid
from our view; we have gained Nature's upper story, and around us is a
perfect calm. Not even the steamer which brought us hither is visible,
so effectually do the bold precipices conceal every near thing in their
shadow. The great cavern through which ocean