Imatges de pàgina
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emitting water any way, muft discharge it. felf in the abyss below. The case of it must be the fame as that of the Caspian Sea. Into this fea many rivers and one in particular, the Volga I mean, that is more than fufficient, in the quantity of water it turns out in a year, to drown the whole world. Yet the Cafpian remains in one state, and does not overflow its banks, excepting, as before obferved, fometimes, in the fpace of 16 years. It must by paffages communicate with the great deep, It refunds the rivers into the great abyss. The cafe of the Mediterranean fea is the fame; for, tho' a ftrong current from the Atlantic continually fits through the Strait of Gibraltar, yet these waters do not make it overflow the country found it, and of confequence, they must be carried off by a fubterranean paffage, or paffages, to the abyss.

37. From the lake I proceeded the next morning, June 14, 1725, toward the northmore con- eaft end of Westmorland, having paffed the night in a found fleep under the trees by the water fide, but was forced by the precian affem- pices, to shape my courfe from four in the morning till eight, to the north-west, and then the road turned eaft-north-east, till

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came to a great glin, where a river made a rumbling noile over rocks and inequalities of many kinds, and formed a very wild wonderful fcene. The river

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was broad and deep, and on an easy defcent to it, was an affemblage of ftones, that ran in length about 100 feet, in breadth 30 feet, and fomewhat refembling the giant's caufeway, in the county of Antrim, and province of Ulfter in Ireland; nine miles north east from the pretty town of Colerain. The giants causeway, reader, is a prodigious pile of rocks, 80 feet broad, 20 feet above the reft of the ftrand, and that run from the bottom of a high hill above 200 yards into the ocean.

The affemblage of ftones I am speaking of are columns with feveral corners, that rife three yards above the ground, and are joined as if done by art; the points being convex and concave, and thereby lying one in another. These columns have five and fix fides, a few of them feven; and a number of them nicely and exactly placed together make one large pillar from one foot to two in diameter. They are fo nicely joined, that al、 tho' they have five and fix fides, as I before faid, yet their contexture is so adapted, as to leave no vacuity between them; the prominent angles of one pillar fitting, and falling exactly into the hollows left them between two others, and the plain fides exactly answer to one another; fo that thofe hexagons and pentagons of columnar marble appear as if finished by the hands of the most masterly work

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workmen. All the pillars ftood exactly perpendicular to the plane of the horizon.

Doctor Foley, in the philofophical tran factions, No. 212, fpeaking of the giants causeway, feems to think these wonderful pillars are composed of the common sort of craggy rock by the fea fide: and the authors of the complete fyftem of geography are of opinion, they refemble the lapis Bafaltes; but fome think they are a fort of marble, Now the truth is, the Bafaltes of the antients is a very elegant and beautiful marble of a fine deep gloffy black, like high polished fteel, and is always found erect in the form of regular angular columns, compofed of number of joints, fitted together, and making pillars: fo that where fuch pillars are feen, they are undoubtedly the columnar marble or touchstone of the antients. Dr. Hill, in his hiftory of foffils, gives a good account of the nature of this body, and mentions feveral places it is to be found in ; but seems not to have heard there was any of it among the northern mountains of our country.

This marble is one of the nobleft productions of nature, and of all the foffil kingdom, the most aftonishing body. If art is requifite for the formation of many things we fee daily done with elegance and beauty; then certainly, mind itself, even the fupreme mind, must have caufed fuch

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fuch effects as thefe aftonishing marble pillars; which lie in vaft compound perpendicular columns at great depths in the earth, (none in beds of ftrata, like the other marbles), and rife in fuch beautiful joints and angles, well fitted together more than fix and thirty foot above ground in fome places. No other way could those wonderful productions have come into being, but by that intelligent, active power, who Speaks intelligibly to every nation by his works. To talk as fome people do, that neceffity, which deftroys the very idea of intelligent and defigning activity-or chance, which is an utter abfurdity or the fea, according to Tellamed, generated and formed this genus of marble, and fo wonderfully distinguished it from all the other marmora; by making it into pentagon, hexagon, and feptagon columns, and rendering the points of the columns convex and concave, and fo amazingly joining them together, that the prominent angles of one pillar fall exactly into the hollow left beween two others, and the plain fides exactly answer to one another, as before obferved, while all of them stand up perpendicular, contrary to the quality of all other marbles, and fome lie in beds of ftrata

To talk I fay of the fea, a chance, a neceffity, doing this, or any thing of fo wonderful a kind, is to produce schemes founded in ignorance, and everfive of true know

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ledge, instead of giving a rational, intelligible account of the formation of the world, its order and appearances. In this wonderful production, a due attention perceives infinite art and power. Did we want that variety of things which employ the confideration of rational men, and force the tongues of thinking men to acknowledge creating power, this marble alone would be fufficient to demonftrate equal power directed by infinite wisdom.

38. Another extraordinary thing I saw in of a burn- a valley not far from that where the Bafaltes ing Spring, ftands. It is a boisterous burning fpring. It

rifes with great noife and vibration, and gushes out with a force fufficient to turn many mills. The water is clear and cold, but to the tafte unpleafant, being something like a bad egg. I judged from the nature of its motion, that the water would take fire, and having lit my torch, foon put it in a flame. The fire was fierce, and the water ran down the vale in a blaze. It was a river of fire for a confiderable way, till it funk under ground among fome rocks, and thereby disappeared, After it had burnt fome time, I took fome boughs from a tree, and tying them together, beat the furface of the well for a few minutes, and the burning ceafed. The water was not hot, as one might expect, but cold as the coldeft fpring could be. There are a great number of such springs in

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