Series 1 > Tours in Scotland 1747, 1750, 1760

TOUR THROUGH SCOTLAND, 1760.
of Arms; From this apartment a high wall extended to an
island near the shoar, but it is every way a perpendicular Clift*:
There is a covered way to it through this wall; The Castle was
the seat of the Earls of March who for this reason were
commonly called Earls of Dunbar.
1 The passage into the harbour as observed before is very
narrow between two rocks, one of them is the east side of the
harbour, The other is a promontory stretching out about 100
yards to the north, and 50 feet wide, having the sea on each
side of it when the tyde is in : And this head is a most extra¬
ordinary natural curiosity: It is of a red stone which is not a
limestone, but looks rather like a very hard freestone. This
appears on both sides like the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland:
The stones on the west side are from a foot to two foot over,
they are larger on the east side, from two feet to four feet. I
saw them from three to eight sides, but only one or two of the
first and last : They may be said to be in Joynts, but differ
from that in Ireland as both the pillars and the Joynts in each
1 The following was communicated by Dr. Pococke to the Royal Society ;—it
is very nearly the ipsissima verba of the text :—‘ An account of a Production of
Nature at Dunbar in Scotland, like that of the Giants-Causeway in Ireland ; by
the Right Reverend Richard Lord Bishop of Ossory, F.R.S., read before the
Royal Society, Feb. 26, 1761. The passage into the harbour of Dunbar is
very narrow, between two rocks : one of them is the east side of the harbour ;
the other is a promontory, stretching out about a hundred yards to the north,
and is about twenty yards wide, having the sea on each side of it, when the tide
is in. This head is a most extraordinary natural curiosity : it is of a red stone,
which is not a lime-stone, but appears rather like a very hard free stone. It
looks on both sides like the Giant’s-Causeway in Ireland : the stones on the west
side are from a foot to two feet over ; on the east side they are larger, from two
feet to four feet. I observed the pillars from three to eight sides ; but only one
or two of the first and last; they may be said to be in joints, but are strongly
cemented together by a red and white sparry substance, which is formed in
lamina round the pillars, and between the joints, two or three inches in thick¬
ness. The interstices between the large pillars, which are but few, are filled
with small pillars, without joints. The pillars consist of horizontal laminae :
the joints are not concave and convex when separated, but uneven and irregular :
they lie sloping from east to west: on the west side, towards the end, the pillars
become very large & confused, as I saw them to the east of the Giant’s-Causeway,
and in the isle of Mull; except that these are divided by such a sparry substance
into a great number of small figures, which seem to go down through them.
There are spots and veins of a whitish stone in the pillars. There is no sign
of anything of the kind in any of the rocks near, that I could observe or hear of.’
—Philosophical Transactions, Royal Society, London, vol. Hi. p. 98.