ich must be considered as continuing to operate. One example more
I wish to give, not only as it is much to the purpose, and properly
described, but because it contains the natural history of a coast well
known from the circumstance of the Giant's Causeway which it contains;
a coast composed of stratified chalk indurated and consolidated to a
species of marble or lime-stone, and of great masses of basaltes or
columnar whin-stone. Now, though our present object is not the formation
of land, yet, knowing the mineral constitution of this land, the coast
of which we are considering as having been worn by the action of the
sea, the view here to be given, of the white marble and basaltic cliffs,
is satisfactory in the highest degree. It is from Letters concerning
the Northern Coast of the County of Antrim, by the Reverend William
Hamilton, A. M.

"The chalky cliffs of the island of Raghery, crowned by a venerable
covering of brown rock, form a very beautiful and picturesque appearance
as one sails towards them; and, if the turbulence of the sea does not
restrain the eyes and fancy from expatiating around, such a striking
similitude appears between this and the opposite coast, as readily
suggests an idea that the island might once have formed a part of the
adjoining country, from whence it has been disunited by some violent
shock of nature.

"You, to whom demonstration is familiar, will wonder to see two shores,
seven or eight miles asunder, so expeditiously connected by such a
slender and fanciful middle term as apparent similitude; and yet the
likeness is so strong, and attended with such peculiar circumstances,
that I do not entirely despair of prevailing even on you to acknowledge
my opinion as a probable one.

"It does not appear unreasonable to conclude, that, if two pieces of
land, separated from each other by a chasm, be composed of the same kind
of materials, similarly arranged, at equal elevations, these different
lands might have been originally connected, and the chasm be only
accidental. For, let us conceive the materials to be deposited by any of
the elements of fire, air, earth, or water, or by any cause whatever,
and it is not likely that this cause (otherwise general) should in all
its operations regularly stop short at the chasm.

"The materials of which the island of Raghery is composed are accurately
the same as those of the opposite shore; and the arrangement answers so
closely, as almost to demonstrat