:

less this, he was told, by a peasant, was the usual way in 'which firs decay; and that, in process of time, they would gradually throw themselves up from the roots, and thus perish. Some fifteen years afterwards, he was much surprized at finding the wood totally gone, and the spot on which it stood covered with a green moss. Having made enquiries upon the subject, he found the trees had fallen, as the peasant had foretold, and that nobody had been at the pains to carry it away; the green moss or fog had overgrown the whole of the timber; and that this moss, being nourished by the moisture which came down from the hill above it, had stagnated on the plain, and formed a regular bog: he was also told, that it was perfectly impassable: doubting the truth of the latter assertion, he immediately jumped upon it, and sunk up to the neck, as you would have done to-day, Edward, had it not been for our guide."

The Morse deer, which is very plentiful in America, appears to have been numerous in Ireland; for in the particular neighbourhood we have just traversed, and about Fermanagh, many horns, and even heads, and in some places whole skeletons of that animal have been discovered at the depth of from four to fourteen feet, under ground. This part of Ireland produces very fine ambergris. At Sligo, and along. the coast of Mayo, Kerry, and the isles of Arran, it is found in considerable quantities. "I think," said Edward, "it is a very great pity, that so fine a country as this might be made, if properly attended to, should be so neglected.""I think so too," replied Dr. Walker: "perhaps when you return from your travels, and have made yourself well acquainted with human nature in its various forms, you will be able to do that, the necessity of which all seem willing to allow; though as yet no one has had the courage or the skill to point out how it should be effected." "I will begin with my own castle," said his pupil.

SECTION VI.

WAKES IN IRELAND.

FROM Carrick, the travellers proceeded to Leitrim; on the road thither, they were not a little inconvenienced by the

funeral of some cousin of their postillion. Upon stopping their poor, lean, half-starved animals, at a wretched inn, or rather hovel, by the road side, to give them a little water, Blarney learnt that a relation of his was dead; and upon being asked to attend his wake, he said, "he couldn't refuse," and so very quietly begged Dr. Walker and his pupil would just be so kind as to stop till the morning. In vain the travellers remonstrated; Blarney was positive; and Dr. Walker was obliged to get out of his chaise, and follow the postillion into the inn. There, to the great surprize of Edward, they found the corpse laid out upon the table, with candles, and plates of salt all about him. The host was very busy, as well as his dame; and two girls, their daughters, appeared to be making great preparations for some sort of entertainment, rather than a funeral.

"Sure and you'll dance," said one of them to Edward, who being but little acquainted with the manners of the poorer Irish, stared at the question; but Dr. Walker, who knew the customs of the Irish peasantry well, answered for him, "He likes blind man's buff best." The girl replied, "that they should play blind man's buff, and hunt the slipper too, as soon as her brother came back, who was gone to fetch the piper." When this youth returned, he brought the melancholy intelligence, that the piper was sick, and could not come, but that he had brought a host of friends to lament over the dead. To say the truth, the friends came in so fast, and brought with them so strong a perfume of whiskey, that the travellers gladly accepted an invitation, given them by the girls, to go to the barn, where they soon heard sounds of doleful lamentations issuing from the house, which gradually increased, till they became a dreadful howl-"Ah why did ye die;" forming the burthen of the funeral song. The barn, in the mean while, presented a scene of joyous mirth; blind man's buff, and hunt the slipper, were followed up with great spirit. Towards morning, Dr. Walker, as the sounds from within the inn gradually subsided, thought perhaps the postillion would now continue his journey: but he was mistaken; he protested he would not move a step till his cousin was safely lodged in the ground; and as our travellers were totally unacquainted with the road, they were obliged to make a virtue of necessity, and stay quietly till the middle of the day, when Blarney assured them he would make up for lost time. He was as

good as his word; for he flogged the wretched animals till he got them into a gallop; and, regardless of the entreaties of his passengers, and the cracking of his crazy vehicle, Blarney drove on, and at length safely landed them at Lei

trim.

Having thus followed the course of the Shannon to its source, they traversed the counties of Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Londonderry. They made some short stay at the capital of the last mentioned county, the siege of which, in the dispute between James II. and William III. for the crown of Great Britain, is deservedly celebrated. Londonderry stands on the Foyle, over which there is a wooden bridge of singular construction, one thousand and sixty-eight feet in length.

"Now for the Giant's Causeway," said Edward joyfully, as they prepared to quit Londonderry: "I really quite long to see it; for I think I have heard that it is the finest exhibition of basaltic columns in the universe." "You have heard right,” replied Dr. Walker.

SECTION VII.

THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY-BASALTIC, AND GRANITE ROCKS.

THE British dominions present the noblest specimens in the known world of columnar basalt; amongst which, the Giant's Causeway stands conspicuous, it consists of three piers of basalt columns, which extend some hundred feet into the sea: It is surrounded by precipitous rocks, from 200 to 400 feet high, in which there are several striking assemblages of columns, some vertical, some bent or inclined, and some horizontal, and as it were mortised or driven into the rock. Bengore, which bounds the Causeway on the east, consists of alternate ranges of tabular and massive, with columnar basalt.

But among the various and grand objects on this coast, Pleskin is perhaps the most striking: it presents several colonnades of great height and regularity, separated from each other by tabular basalt; and at Fairhead, the north-east

cape of Ireland, and forming the east side of Ballycastle Bay, there is a range of columns of from ten to twenty feet diameter, and between 200 and 300 feet high, supported upon a steep declivity, and offering to the mariner at sea the spectacle of a terrace, which towers nearly 600 feet above the waves that roll beneath.

Another Basalt district, which even exceeds the former in magnificent peculiarities, is that which presents itself in sailing down Loch Nagaul, in Mull. The coast of this island upon the right and left exhibits the step-like appearance of basaltic rocks in great proportion, with yawning ca verns and fine columns.

The isles of Ulva and Gometra rise with the abrupt and irregular precipices common to this formation. The Treshamish Isles exhibit columnar and massive basalt, and in the midst of this grand panorama, Staffa presents itself. The columns, which are from sixty to ninety feet high, are approached by a fine causeway, rising gently from the deep, and an immense weight of tabular basalt appears supported by these columns. The pillars are perpendicular, inclined, and in some places extremely curved. In Fingal's Cave, the ranges of columns extend, in deep perspective, into the interior of the rock, presenting a scene of such unrivalled grandeur, as hitherto to have scorned the descriptive pen of the poet, or the pencil of the painter, to represent,

"c Pray, Sir," said Edward, "Of what are the Basaltic columns composed ?"

DR. WALKER." Basalt is always a homogeneous rock, and abounds in black oxyde of iron; and a piece of basalt presented to a common observer, would immediately be pronounced the product of a volcano, the analogy between it and the lava being most striking."

less.

Upon reaching Fairhead, Edward was lost in astonishment. Even his glowing imagination had fallen short in the picture of the Giant's Causeway. He was perfectly speech. "Was I wrong when I described the grandeur of this scene," said Dr. Walker, as his pupil gazed with astonishment and delight at the magnificent scene before him. "Oh no, Sir," replied Edward, "Oh how I wish my mother and sisters could see this grand view! I hope you will not quit Fairhead to day, Sir, I could gaze for ever.""No," replied Dr. Walker, "You shall pass one more day

here; but we have, you must remember, a finer prospect of this kind in reserve- -the Isle of Staffa."

Edward was unwilling to allow any view could be finer than the one before him. The next day unfortunately proved very stormy, and the travellers, although they received much gratification in contemplating the majesty of the waves as they broke against the Basaltic columns, were compelled to pass the greater part of the day in the inn where they had taken up their abode, and where they amused themselves with the following short dissertation upon rocks.

EDWARD." In the book you gave me, Sir, upon the formation, or rather nature of mountains, it says that green stone is often found upon primary rocks."

DR. WALKER. "6

Exactly so."

"And," pursued Edward," Primitive rocks are generally found in large masses or blocks, not regularly stratified, and affecting a vertical arrangement in their fractures and fissures. Sometimes they are of a perfectly homogeneous texture, commonly hard and durable, and sometimes composed of two or three ingredients blended together; they are generally crystalline in their texture, and usually constitute the loftiest mountains.

“The transition series of rocks, or those deemed by the Wernerians, next in point of antiquity, to the primitive, are less lofty than the former. In many instances, they present a slaty texture; and they seem to have been deposited in strata, or layers, which are seldom either vertical or horizontal, but variously inclined to the horizon.

"The secondary rocks, or the more recent series, are nearly, if not quite, horizontal in their position. In their texture they are soft, and, consequently, easy of decay; and they appear rather as mechanical deposits than as chemical compounds which have resulted from fusion, crystallization, or solution. But I think I can recollect the exact divisions of mountains into four classes, as arranged by Werner and his disciples, namely, 1. Primitive; 2. Intermediate; 3. Secondary; 4. Tertiary; to which may be added Volcanic mountains, as a 5th class.

"I. Primitive mountains are composed of 1. Granite; 2. Gneiss; 3. Micaceous shistus; 4. Argillaceous shistus; 5. Primitive lime-stone; 6. Trap; 7. Porphyry; 8. Sienite;