Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/811

 GIANTS' CAUSEWAY 795 wick measured 8^- ft. ; Gilli, a giant of Trent, in Tyrol, was 8 ft. 2 in. ; and a Swede in the celebrated grenadier guard of Frederick William I. of Prussia stood 8 ft. There is probably not a single well authenticated case, among the many given by ancient writers, of men whose stature has exceeded the natural limits, that has not been equalled in a compar- atively modern period. Giants fully 8 ft. high are not unfrequently exhibited. The enormous skeletons, found in times past, of 20, 30, 50, and 100 ft. in length, were without doubt the fossil remains of animals of the primitive world, which only ignorance could have ascribed to a human origin. The progress of comparative anatomy has aided to dispel the errors long prevalent in relation to giants, and there is lit- tle fear that men of science of the present age will be deceived, as Buffon was, into represent- ing as human the bones of an elephant. GIANTS' CAUSEWAY, a series of columnar ba- saltic rocks in the county Antrim, on the N. E. coast of Ireland, between. Bengore Head and Port Rush. For 8 m. along the coast, from Bengore to Fairhead, the land abuts upon the sea in cliffs of basalt, many of which are made up in great part of rude vertical columns which alternate with layers of amorphous beds of the same class of rock. Ranges of these piled upon each other sometimes reach the height of 400 and at Fairhead even 550 ft. As seen from the sea in front, the uniformity of the arrangement of vertical columns and horizontal beds suggests rude resemblances to architectu- ral forms. At the base of the cliffs is a talus of ruins that have fallen from the structures above and slope down to the water. But though the name of Giants' Causeway is often applied to all this coast range, it is properly applicable to but a small portion of it, a local- ity quite unpretending in its extent or in the grandeur of its features. It is a platform of basalt, composed of closely arranged colamns, ranging from 15 to 36 ft. in height. This plat- form extends from a steep cliff down into the sea, till it is lost below low-water mark. Its Giants 1 Causeway. /ength exposed at low water is differently given, but probably is less than 600 ft. It is divided across its- breadth into three portions, which are called the Little, the Middle, and the Large or Grand Causeway; the first being that on the east. These are separated from each oth- er by dikes of amorphous basalt. The Great Causeway, which is the principal object of in- terest, is only from 20 to 30 ft. wide, though detached outliers of the same columnar struc- ture standing on the shore near by might be added to increase the width. They no doubt connect with the same group below the sur- face. The columns are for the most part hex- agonal prisms ; but they are found also of five, seven, eight, and nine sides, and in one instance at least of three sides. They are all jointed into short irregular lengths from a few inches to a few feet each, the articulations being per- fectly fitted by a convex end entering the con- cavity of the adjoining piece, so that the blocks form a true column. There is no uniformity m the arrangement of the convexities and con- cavities, but generally the upper part of this section is concave. The diameter is variable, but ranges generally from 15 to 28 in. ^ The columns fit together with the utmost precision, the corresponding faces of adjacent prisms be- ing always equal, and so continuing from the top of the platform till the lines of separation are lost beneath the ground. It is said that water even cannot penetrate between adjoin-