Lawrence democrat. (Lawrenceburg, Tenn.) 1884-1925, 1894-09-14
THE GIANTS CAUSEWAY.
Legend of the Famous Rock Formation Of
the Coast of Ireland.


the Coast of Ireland.
Long, long ago there were great and
mighty giants, whose homes were the
hills and mountains of Great Britain,
and some of them have left traces OF
their strength and prowess to this day.
The greatest of all their works is the
Giants Causeway, on the north coast
of Ireland. Fin MacCool was the name
of the giant who built this wonderful
pathway over the sea. Another giant
named Benardonner lived just oppo-
site, on the island of Staffa fifty miles
away over rough sea waters, and Fin
MacCool wanted to get him to come
over to fight him. So he piled the rock
| pillars right across to make road upon
which he might walk dry shod. So
says tradition.
| We can not wonder that wild stories
and legends have grown up in this
weird and grand spot, where the rocks
take such fantastic shapes as to resem-
BILE all sorts of artificial structures. 1t
was natural that a simple and imagi-
native people, like the early Celtic
tribe that dwelt here long ago, should
explain that resemblance by fable and
fancy. All round the grand cliffs of
the bay are rows of pillars, tall Chin
neys, clusters of pipes like the reeds Of
an organ, and at a rugged spot where
the rock crystals seem to be stacked in
hundreds of thousands, low down un-
der the shelter of the tremendous
cliffs, the causeway runs out to the sea.
These pillars or columns were form
ed by the action of heat Long, long
ago, during those terrible and tremen.
dous commissions of nature which mold
ed the face of our own country, a
stream of fiery lava was spread over a
great part of the counties of Antrim
and Londonderry. stream we can
hardly call it, but rather a mighty
ocean of boiling rock. You may imag-
inc something of the scale of these
great natural forces when you learn
that this wave of boiling hot basalt has
cooled down into beds of hard rock one
thousand feet deep in some places, and
spread over an area of over eight hun
dred square miles.
The causeway itself is long pier or
mole, on which you may walk for two
hundred yards out to sea over this
mosaic of closely packed columns. Be-
hind are the mighty cliffs, rows of pill
lars ranged against them. Allaround
sea and shore are strewn with broken
and fallen pillars of rock. They are
piled on the beach in all sorts OF
strange groups. Far down in the clear
waters of this rocky shore you may see
pillars and fragments of pillars strewn
on the sea bottom. Where they stand
undisturbed they are in rows and
stacks, but the wild waves of this
stormy coast have forced their way in
among them and torn away acres OF
cliff.
The sea is encroaching here. II
would seem as if such rock fortified.
tons as these could resist even the at.
tack of wild sea waves; but. strange to
say, rocks are not the best defense
when water is the enemy. On many
shores where the land lies low and the
sands are ever shifting, and the marshes
are flooded at high tide, the land is
gaining and the sea recedes; while on
coasts such as this, where the precious
land seems guarded by ST. ong rocks
the land loses and the sea gains,
4 These cliffs built of separate columns
of stone, are peculiarly liable to be
broken down by wind and wave;
nevertheless the causeway, built not
by giants, but by the giant forces o.
nature in the days when the world wa:
young, will stand for many long day
yet. st. Louis Republic.