Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/800

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■might be to the people at that time, it was greatly confirm-. ed afterwards by the difcovery of two entire fkelefons of elephants, found near the fame place, which had both fuch teeth fixed in their jaws. A fecond fkeleton of an imaginary ■giant was dug up near Tunis in 1630, and a tooth of it be- ing fent to the learned Plerefc, he took the impremon of it in wax, and upon comparing it with the tooth of an elephant fhewn near the place, he found it to be of the very fame fhape and fize. Philof. Tranf. N\ 404. p. 514. Lambecius gives -an account of a tooth of a giant, fent from Conftantinople to Vienna, and offered to fale to the emperor, at the price of two thoufand rix dollars. It was -faid to have been found in a large fubterranean cavern, over which Was an infeription in the Chaldaic language, figmfy- ing here lies the giant Og. This was pretended therefore to be a tooth of the giant Og, king of Bafhan, mentioned in the fcriptures, but the whole ftory being found to be a fable, the tooth was fent back again. This was doubtlefs the tooth of an elephant like all the others. Sir Hans Sloane gives a very accurate and learned account of feveral other miftakes on this fubject, which we refer to in the above- mentioned Transaction. 'Giant's Caufeway, a, name given by the common people of the county of Antrim in Ireland, to a vaft quantity of that kind of black marble, called bafaltes, which ftands in columns, as is natural to that marble, and runs out a great way into the fea.

The ignorance of the vulgar in the nature of this ftone, has occafioned this great pile of it to be fuppofed artificial, and the work of I know not what giants, once inhabitants there. But the truth is, that the bafaltes, in whatever part of the world it is found, is always naturally of this figure. See the article Basaltes.

Whoever confiders this amazing feries of columns in Ireland, will be foon convinced no human hands could have formed them ; and will find an accuracy in their figures, greater than could have been expected from the raoft curious hand. The length of the feveral columns, and their joints fo regu- larly placed in feries, and the nicenefs of their articulations, by which no fpace or vacuity is left between, is wonderful. Nature has been abundantly curious in the ftrucrafe and formation of animal and vegetable bodies, but the foffils in general are lefs curioufly put together ; but this caufeway of bafaltes feems one of the works in this part of the creation. in which her greateft accuracy has been employed. The fingle columns of which this mafs of piles confifts are fometimes octangular, fometimes of feven, or fewer fides, and when examined, they are found juft fuch as muft necef- farily be required in the places where they ftand to fill up between others, fo as to leave no vacuity. Each of thefe co- lumns is compofed of a great many feries of joints, each of which is fo well fitted to the place, that the joining appears only a crack, or crevice in the ftone. Yet thefe are regu- larly articulated, there being always a ball on one part, and a focket in the other to receive it, fo that the joints cannot flip off from one another. The triangular and fquare co- lumns are fewer in number than the others, but they ftand principally in the inner part of the large feries, and are fel- dom feen unlefs fearched after by a curious eye. The regular figure of the ftone compofing this caufeway is not more wonderful than its quantity. Other figured ftones 3 as cryftals, fpars, and the remains of animals, fuch as entro- chi and afterice, are found only fcattered thinly up and down. but nature has been profufe in this part of her workmanfhip, the whole country for many miles being full of it* and a vaft mafs running no one knows how far into the fea. For befides what vulgarly goes by the name of the giant's caufeway, which is itfelf of vaft extent, there are great numbers of the fame pillars at diftances in other places. There are two other fmaller and imperfect caufeway s to the left hand of the great one, and farther in the fea, a great number of rocks fhew themfelves at low water, which ap- pear plainly all to confift of the fame fort of columns. In going.- up the hill from the caufeway there are found, different places, a vaft number of the fame columns ; but thefe do not ftand erect, but are laid flanting upwards in different angles and directions. Beyond this hill eaftward alfo^ at feveral diftances, there ftand a great number of the fame pillars placed ftrait and erect, and in clufters of differe: fizes. Thefe are feen fcattered as it were over the feveral parts of the hiils. One parcel of them is much admired, and called by the country people the looms or the organs. It ftands in an elegant form, and faces the bottom of the hill. The columns, of which this clufter confifts, are fifty in number, and they are fo nicely put together, that the talleft ftand in the middle, and the fhorter gradually on each fide of it to the' end, fo that they look like the pipes of a church organ viewed from the front. The talleft one of all thefe, which ftands exactly in the center, is forty Feet high, and confifts of forty four diftinct joints.

Four miles weftward of the giant's caufeway feveral ranges of tall pillars, of the fame kind with thofe of the caufeway, ihew themfelves in clufters, and fmaller piles ftanding for a

long way on the fides of the rocks. A neighbouring church was built (of the ftone of fome like pillars found thereabout, and this ftone on examination proves to be the very fame with that of the pillars of the giant's caufeway. The inland pillars differ from thofe which run into the fea, and are called the caufeway only in the following particulars ; fome of the inland pillars are much larger than thofe of the caufeway, being two feet and a half in diameter, and among thefe there are only found fuch as have three, four, five, and fix fides, none of them having yet been found to have feven or eight fides, as many of thofe of the caufeway itfelf have. And finally thefe inland pillars, though compofed of as many joints as thofe of the caufeway, yet have not that curious articulation of the ball and focket, but are only joined by the laying one fmooth furface on another ; fo that a joint of a fingle column may be flipped off" from the reft by a confiderable force prefling againft it. There is fomething like this obfervable alfo in fome of the columns of the caufeway itfelf; for among the numbers which are jointed by the ball and focket, there are fome which only adhere by being applied furface to furface. This is found only in a few of the columns, however, and they always ftand with- in the clufters, and are compofed of lefs than feven fides. In thefe alfo the joint is not made by the application of two horizontal planes, but by fuch as flant, fo that it looks very like the breaking of an entrochus, or afteria, or fome other fuch fparry body, of extraneous or animal origin. Great numbers of the upper ends of the columns which compofe the caufeway itfelf are hollowed at the top, as if in- tended to receive another joint with a ball at its end, or as if fuch a joint had fallen off from them. Thefe hollows are of great ufe to the neighbouring poor, for they make a kind of fait pans of them ; and thus very eafily procure themfelves a kind of bay fait in fummer. They fill thefe little bafins with fea water at high tides, and the heat of the fun and of the ftone contributing greatly to the evaporation, as well as the fhallownefs of the bafin, the whole humidity is found evaporated in the time of four tides, and they take out the fait ready for ufe. The joints, of which thefe pillars con-, fift, are generally convex at one end, and concave at the other ; the fitft part ferving as a ball for the focket of the. joint next below, and the other as a focket for the ball of the joint next above. But this is not an unalterable law in their formation ; for there are fome joints found which are convex at both ends, and others which are concave at both ends, to receive balls, or enter fockets both ways. The vaft height of thefe ftrait jointed pillars, efpecially of the more flender and perfect ones, is amazing. Forty foot is a very confiderable height for a pillar, of perhaps lefs than a foot in diameter, yet this is far from being the whole real length of the pillar, for this appears above ground, but what is buried in the earth is not yet known. Some curious people have dug down eight feet at the bafe, and found the co- lumn run in the fame fhape and regularity to that depth ; and there has appeared no room to doubt of its having gone in reality much farther.

The joints, as we fee the pillars above the furface, are ufually as many in number, as the pillar is feet high ; but they are not regularly each of a foot long, for they are fhorteft at the upper part of the columns, and run gradually longer and longer as they approach the bafe. This is obferved both in the inland columns, and in thofe of the caufeway ; but thouo-h the length of the joints differs, their convexities and hollows are much the fame in all parts of the column. It is to be obferved, that where the top of any pillar feems compleat, and no part to have been broken off, the fummit of* the topmoft joint is ufually flat and fmooth, nature having provided no convexity or cavity in a part where it had no ufe.

There feems a very great difficulty to conceive by what means the ftony joints, fo bulky and ponderous, and fo per- fectly diftinct, and difcontinued bodies from one another, could arrive at the places where they now are placed, or be carried to the tops of fuch high columns ; but when we confjder many other natural phenomena, we fhall find fo many things equally wonderful, that this will not appear the lefs a work of nature becaufe beyond our comprehenfion. The internal fubftance of the ftone compofing thefe*coIumns, is extremely hard and compact. Its greet, or grain is fo very fine, that the eye does not perceive it, unlefs examined very nicely, and that in the furface of a piece newly broken. It then fliews itfelf like a very fine glittering fand, thickly in- terfperfed among a more opake matter; the whole is heavier than almoft any other fimple ftone ; yet it contains not the leaft particle of any metal fo far as has been yet difco- vered. It is the pureft and molt homogene of any ftone of this country ; having no extraneous matter, no foflils of the animal kind in it, fuch as fhells, entrochi, and the like ; which are well known to be very common in the va- rious ftrata of ftone, in Ireland, and in many other parts of the world. Marbles, in general, are very fubject alfo to cracks, which when filled up as they ufually are with fparry

matter,