A NATURAL CATHEDRAL.

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cut. It may be compared, indeed, to a grand Gothic cathedral, the nave of which is lined with pillars of unequal heights, which have been injured by a fire whose ravages still blacken the entire edifice. The bottom of this grotto is closed and dark, in form like the altar of a church. On either side rise two great walls composed of prismatic columns fifty feet high, between which, at certain intervals, occur sundry excavations three or four feet in depth. These walls are 140 feet in depth from the entrance to the natural cathedral, and at their extremity is a collection of smaller columns, so arranged as to convey the notion that this must have been the organ-loft of the choir. These smaller columns are jet black, about one to three feet in diameter, and varying in form— some are triangular, others quadrangular, pentagonal, hexagonal. Some have seven or eight sides, but perfect in their angular arrangement. The pillars only differ from each other in altitude by three or four feet. When the sea is smooth, it is easy to distinguish beneath the waters a perfectly black flooring composed of well-defined squares of five, six, or seven sides.

The light of day, gradually softening, reaches to the very end of the cave; and when the eye is accustomed to the darkness of the locality, every object within can be easily distinguished. Thus, on returning to the entrance, instead of the long rows of black organ-pipes, the sight rests upon a picture which affords a delicious relief to the sombre spectacle of which it has been a witness. The effect is that of the opening the doors of a

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SCOTT'S DESCRIPTION.

temple, or raising the curtain of a theatre; and although the sky may be overspread with clouds, there is something dazzling in the sudden encounter of the sea and the blue vault of heaven, so great is the contrast between their lustre, even minimised, and the dark walls through which the spectator may have passed. At the extremity, on the horizon, the Isle of Iona is clearly perceptible, at a distance of two miles. Even the whitened ruins of its abbey, resting on the black and rugged rocks, against which the waves dash and shiver, can be easily discerned.

Among the great pictures which nature places before the sight of mankind, there are no doubt many more brilliant and soft than the Cave of Fingal; but there is not one which leaves behind a more durable and pleasant recollection. How often, in after life, are we apt to recall our first view of the lofty colonnades of Staffa, and to exclaim, with Walter Scott:

"The shores of Mull on the eastward lay,

And Ulva dark, and Colonsay,

And all the group of islands gay
That guard famed Staffa round.
Then all unknown its columns rose,
Where dark and undisturb'd repose
The cormorant had found;
And the shy seal had quiet home,
And weltered in that wondrous dome,
Where, as to shame the temples deck'd
By skill of earthly architect,
Nature herself, it seemed, would raise
A minster to her Maker's praise!

SCOTT'S DESCRIPTION.

Not for a meaner arc ascend

Her columns, or her arches bend;

Nor of a theme less solemn tells

That mighty surge that ebbs and swells,
And still, between each awful pause,
From the high vault an answer draws,
In varied tone, prolonged and high,
That mocks the organ's melody.

Nor doth its entrance front in vain
To old Iona's holy fane,

That Nature's voice might seem to say,
'Well hast thou done, frail child of clay!
Thy humble powers that stately shrine
Task'd high and hard-but witness mine."

*Lord of the Isles, canto iv.

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Vegetation.

THE happy lands of the equinoctial zone, in which the intensity of light and humid heat develop all the organic seeds with so much power and rapidity, are not the only ones the animated descriptions of which have cast an irresistible charm over the study of nature. Each portion of the earth has its peculiar and characteristic beauty. The redoubtable powers of nature are spread over the whole world. They have subdued the ancient discord of the elements, and forced them to unite in one common harmony, as apparent in the stormy regions of the atmosphere as in the delicate tissues of the animate world. The vegetable decoration of the earth's surface is unequally woven. Thicker in those localities where the sun exercises the most potent influence either in a clear locality or amidst transparent vapours, it is sparingly disseminated in the sombre northern lands, where the rapid return of frost gives the buds no time to open, and surprises the fruits just as they are ripening.

The extraordinary height to which, under the equator, not merely mountain peaks and chains, but entire countries, have raised themselves, and the abatement of temperature of which it is the cause, procures to the inhabitant of the torrid zone the extraordinary faculty of transporting himself in a few hours from the bosom of the palm-tree and banana groves, which embalm vanilla and spices, to the shady forests of the cypress, the beech, and