THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.

Only imagine yourself, says a writer in the Journal of Commerce, in a little row-boat, passing around the northern coast of Ireland. In the distance, you seem to look upon an immense castle, flanked by double rows of cylindrical columns. It seems so fortress-like, this massive structure rising from the depths of the sea, that you expect to find guards and wardens, soldiery and arms; but as you approach nearer it loses that castellated appearance, and gradually lessens in magnitude until there remains only a huge stone wall, extending around the coast for miles. It is composed of gigantic pillars, cut into prisms, three-sided, five-sided, eight-sided—side fitting to side—variously jointed, joint corresponding to joint, innumerable irregularities conformed into such beautiful regularity, that you are struck with awe at so perfect a monument of skill, and ask involuntarily to what great artist your praise is due; what year marked the foundation-stone; what force formed each cylinder, and joined in uniform contact such irregular masses? The toil of many a lifetime has been spent on far meaner designs, and proud wealth has gloried in much less wonderful relics of man’s invention.