Page 295 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

294 THIRD BOOK 0 '
than two or three sides of the pentagonal, and om the edge of the circular part of the joint to the ex­ terior sides and angles, they are quite plain.
6. It is likewise very remarkable, that the articu- · lations of tliese joints are equently inverted; in some the concavity is upwards, in others the reverse. The length, also, of these particular stones, om joint to joint, is various; in general they are om eighteen to twenty- ur inches long, and r the most part longer towards the bottom of the column than nearer the top, and the articulation of the joints something deeper. The size of the columns is as di erent as their length and rm; in general they are om fteen to twenty inches in diameter. There is no trace of uni rmity of design throughout the whole combination, except in the rm of the joint and the general pentagonal shape. vVhat is extra­ ordinary and curious is, that nohvithstanding the universal dissimilitude of the columns, both as to their gure and diameter, and though per ctly dis­ tinct from top to bottom, yet is the whole so closely joined at all points, that there is scarcely room to introduce a kni between them, either on the sides or angles.
7. The whole exhibition of this great plan of na­ ture, so r superior to the little things done by man, is a con sed regularity and disuni rmity, display­ ing too much diversity of plan to be all seen or com­ prehended at once. A considerable way along the
- coast, the cli s, rising in some parts from two to three hundred fathoms above the level of the sea, present similar appearances. At. the point which bounds the hay on the east, and just above the nar- 1·owest part of the greatest causeway, a long collec-