Scotland/Scots > Black's picturesque tourist of Scotland

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ARGYLESHIRE, ETC.
the surfaces, as the curve retires on each hand, prevents the adoption of
a very precise point of measurement. The height of the cave within
diminishes very soon to a mean measure varying from fifty to forty-four
feet; which latter, in the same state of the tide, is also the altitude at the
extremity. The length is 227 feet.
As the sea never ebbs entirely, it forms the only floor to the cave,
but the broken range of columns which produces the exterior causeway
is continued within the cave. This range is most perfect at the eastern
side, and admits of access to the further end, provided the water be not
too high; but on the western side it terminates at some distance from
the extremity.
Buachaille or the Herdsman is an insulated rock in the
shape of a conoidal pile of columns rising to a height of about
thirty feet from the surface of the water ; and it appears to lie
on a bed of horizontal columns, which is incurvated, with its
concavity upwards. This bed is only visible about low water,
in many respects the most favourable period for examining
Staffa.
The gradual increase in the size of the columns as we pro¬
ceed along the shore is very observable at the cave of the Scal¬
lop, or Clam-shell, where they are found to have undergone a