This whirlpool is in the Atlantic ocean, near the coast of Norway, Europe.
MOUNTAINS, &c.
Mountains form the principal feature which presents itself on viewing the surface of the land. These immense heights have their descents, more or less steep, and their exteriors greatly diversified. Some of them present a surface of naked and rugged rocks piled one upon another; others show an abrupt and almost perpendicular surface, which conveys to an observer an idea that the mountain has been cut from top to bottom, so as to show the interior. Sometimes mountains seem, when viewed from particular points, to show the form of the head of a tiger, a bear, a man’s face, &c.
Some are composed of columns of basaltic rock, so regularly formed and disposed that they seem to have been formed by art. The columns are five or six sided, and appear to be divided into joints, at intervals of about thirty feet. The Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, is a remarkable instance of this natural curiosity.
GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.
At this place there are ranges of these columns which extend into the sea several hundred feet, and their tops present an almost level surface of pavement.
Mountains have often large cavities in their interiors. In Norway, Europe, there is a remarkable instance of a singular natural formation of a mountain. Mount Torghat is pierced through with an opening one hundred and fifty feet high, and three thousand long; at certain seasons of the year the sun lights up the interior of this passage from one end to the other.
Defiles or passes are narrow natural openings or roads through a chain of mountains, and often form the only communication from one part of a country to the other. There is a famous defile of this kind at the Cape of Good Hope, Africa, which is called Holland’s Kloffe.
