Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

NORTH-KAST COAST. 377
its general effect, if not actually as complete in the details,
as the cliffs of Staffa. The altitude continues much
the same, seldom if ever falling below 300 feet; and
thus, with the same regularity as that far-famed island,
producing a natural architecture of six times the dimen-
sions. Of all the hitherto unexplored scenery of the
Western Islands, there is little to be compared to this
coast. In Staffa, if the load above the pillars produces,
in some respects, a good effect, it also gives an air of
weight and lumpishuess to the general outline. Here,
there is no superincumbent load ; and the pillars, as they
rise, are projected on the sky :
thus producing great light-
ness of effect, as well as an endless diversity of elegance
in the outline. Frequently they terminate upwards in
pinnacles, either simple, or grouped : the forms of these
sometimes resembling those of the analogous objects in the
most florid variety, or the Tudor style of Gothic architec-
ture ; at others, those of the single spires that bristle upon,
and lighten the outlineofsome of the finest foreign models
of an earlier and better age. From the combinations of
these delicate outlines, and their continuity with the
prolonged narrow and grouped columns below, the imi-
tation of the Gothic style is far more perfect than is that
of a Greek style in the arrangements of Staffa; which,
after all, is more matter of fancy than reality. To add to
the intricacy which every where occurs, in consequence
of deep recesses, projecting points, and of the irre-
gular and varied groupings of the columns, parts are
occasionally seen, more or less perfectly detached from
the general mass ; contributing much to the lightness and
elegance of the effect, and removing that weight which
would otherwise arise from a continuous solid colon-
nade. Where this occurrence takes place high up in the
cliffs, it produces, in a still greater degree, that ease
of design which is also the result of the terminating