from the water, under which its outer extremity is evidently submerged. This is the GIANT'S CAUSEWAY, strictly and properly so called; an object, as I have said, neither grand nor picturesque, yet calculated to excite in the mind of every beholder feelings the most profound and various, and to inspire an intensity of interest rarely awakened by mere material nature. But the special configuration and character, and the conditions under which it came to assume its actual position and aspect, will be best understood by considering it, in the first place, in its relations to the neighbouring strata, and those in their relations to the general geological structure of the district. All this can be explained very briefly; and in doing so I shall avail myself partly of the excellent old memoirs of Dr. Richardson,1 but chiefly of the more recent and excellent little memoir of Mr. Bryce, on the general geology of Antrim.2 The general surface of the district is occupied by basaltic rocks and other members of the trap family, originally ejected from beneath in a fluid state, and spread over the pre-existing rocks now lying beneath them. Immediately under the trap lies a bed of chalk, and under the chalk, first a bed of greensand and then a bed of lias. This last is in 1 "Dubourdieu's Statistical Survey of the County of Antrim." Dublin 1812. 2" Geological Notices of the Environs of Belfast," &c. By James Bryce, jun., M.A. Belfast: 1852. |