brief and to the point, we have the remarks of Köhl, the antiquarian who devoted so much of his energy to a study of Ireland’s peculiar and rare beauties.
He says: “With all the explanations that can be offered with respect to the origin of this phenomena, so much is left unexplained that they answer very little purpose. On a close investigation of these wonderful formations, so many questions arise that one scarcely ventures to utter them. With inquiries of this nature, perhaps not the least gain is the knowledge of how much lies beyond the limits of our inquiries, and how many things that lie so plainly before our eyes, which we can see and handle, may yet be wrapped in unfathomable mystery. We see in the Giant’s Causeway the most certain and obvious effects produced by the operation of active and powerful forces which entirely escape our scrutiny. We walk over the heads of some forty thousand columns (for this number has been counted by some curious and leisurely persons), all beautifully cut and polished, formed of such neat pieces, so exactly fitted to each other, and so cleverly supported, that we might fancy we had before us the work of ingenious human artificers; and yet what we behold is the result of the immutable laws of nature, acting without any apparent object, and by a process which must remain a mystery for ever to our understanding. Even the simplest inquiries it is often impossible to answer; such, for instance, as how far these colonnades run out beneath the sea, and how far into the land, which throws over them a veil as impenetrable as that of the ocean.”
There are to be found in this group a great number of caves; some of a unique character, and many more like most other caves, presenting no striking peculiarity. Portcoon Cave is noted for its echo, and Dunkerry Cave for the fact that it can only be entered from the sea.
There is a “Giant’s Well,” of course, which legend tells was but one of the many domestic arrangements which nature had provided for the former Gargantuan inhabitants of these parts, but the chief of all the attractions is the Causeway itself, which is divided into three tongues, the Little, the Middle, and the Grand Causeways.
“The Giant’s Organ,” with its pipes, suggested by the basaltic erections of various heights, possesses perhaps the greatest sentimental interest. The guide-books tell one that he should imagine some gigantic personage seated as if before a keyboard, and ringing out wild melodies in quick succession. It will take an exceedingly vivid imagination to call up this inspiration, and one had much better accept the tale as set forth in the ancient legend, and not attempt to revivify the scene in these advanced days, when the electric-tram from Bushmills is depositing its hundreds daily at the very foot of the Causeway.