a bag of fossil wood, we
ascended by a steep broken ravine to the top of the Scuir. The columns,
as we pass on towards the west, diminish in size, and assume in many of
the beds considerable variety of direction and form. In one bed they
belly over with a curve, like the ribs of some wrecked vessel from which
the planking has been torn away; in another they project in a straight
line, like muskets planted slantways on the ground to receive a charge
of cavalry; in others the inclination is inwards, like that of ranges of
stakes placed in front of a sea-dyke, to break the violence of the
waves; while yet in others they present, as in the eastern portion of
the Scuir, the common vertical direction. The ribbed appearance of every
crag and cliff, imparts to the scene a peculiar character; every larger
mass of light and shadow is corded with minute stripes; and the feeling
experienced among the more shattered peaks, and in the more broken
recesses, seems near akin to that which it is the tendency of some
magnificent ruin to excite, than that which awakens amid the sublime of
nature. We feel as if the pillared rocks around us were like the
Cyclopean walls of Southern Italy,--the erections of some old gigantic
race passed from the earth forever. The feeling must have been
experienced on former occasions, amid the innumerable pillars of the
Scuir; for we find M'Culloch, in his description, ingeniously analyzing
it. "The resemblance to architecture here is much increased," he says,
"by the columnar structure, which is sufficiently distinguishable, even
from a distance, and produces a strong effect of artificial regularity
when seen near at hand. To this vague association in the mind of the
efforts of art with the magnitude of nature, is owing much of that
sublimity of character which the Scuir presents. The sense of power is a
fertile source of the sublime; and as the appearance of power exerted,
no less than that of simplicity, is necessary to confer this character
on architecture, so the mind, insensibly transferring the operations of
nature to the efforts of art where they approximate in character,
becomes impressed with a feeling rarely excited by her more ordinary
forms, where these are even more stupendous."

The top of the Scuir, more especially towards its eastern termination,
resembles that of some vast mole not yet levelled over by the workmen;
the pavement has not yet been laid down, and there are deep gaps in the
mas