towers, and arches, of various height and form, in some places resembling the broken shapeless windows in a Gothic ruin, having the sea boiling around their bases at each flow of the tide. Under this hill, also, there is a number of caverns, of whose formation it is difficult to conjecture the origin, without supposing the sea at some period to have been so much higher on the coast as to have in secret wrought out the softer materials, which might have originally filled those shapeless vacuities. They all open directly to the sea; and it is likely that some of them may extend back to the land side of the hill, as their dark recesses have never been explored. Some of them are lofty even from the entrance, and their bounds every where readily determinable; others, with a low entrance, become gloomily lofty, and uncomfortably damp within; others are low, dismal, dark, and damp, throughout all their windings. Neither the floor nor roof of any are on the same level; some of the lightest are used as a shelter by the stonecutters, both from the heat and rain, and are in part filled by the chips and fragments. One of them was occupied as a stable to conceal the horses of the family of Gordonstown from the rebels, in the year 1745, and has the entrance built up into a neat door; another behind the village of Lossiemouth had, in ancient times, been formed into a small hermitage, not exceeding 12 feet square: it was completed by a handsome Gothic door and window, and commanded a long but a solitary view along the eastern shore. These artificial decorations were torn down by a rude ship-master; and in the course

of working the quarries, the whole cave has been destroyed. There was a fountain in the rock above the hermitage, called St. Gerardine's Well.

CAVES ON THE COAST OF FIFE.

There are seven a little to the east of Easter Wemyss, and all but one about 100 yards from high-water mark. Four of them were long ago fitted up for, and still are, pigeon-houses. There are two at the bottom of the cliff, and immediately under the ruins of the castle of Easter Wemyss; one of them is called Jonathan's Cave, from a man who, with his family, resided some time in it; the entrance to the other is very narow, but after having got through it, you find yourself in a very spacious place, in which is a well of excellent water. It is annually visited by the young people of Easter Wemyss, with lights, upon the first Monday of January Old Style; but from what this custom took its rise, the writer could never learn. The seventh (the nearest to the shore) is called the Court Cave, and two reasons are assigned for the name; one is, that when the lands of Easter Wemyss were the property of the Colvills, they here held their baron-court; another, that King James V. in a frolic once joined a company of gipsies, who were here making merry, and when the liquor began to operate, the gipsies, as usual with people of their character, began to quarrel among themselves; upon this his Majesty attempted to mediate between the parties, but they, ignorant of the rank of their new associate, were about to handle him pretty roughly

for his goodness, which obliged the king to discover himself; in allusion to this affair, the cave was afterwards ironically called the Court Cave. There is another cave a little to the east of the castle of Wemyss, and about the same distance from the shore as the former. This cave, which is near 200 feet in length, 100 in breadth, and 30 in height, was fitted up about sixty years ago by a tacksman for a glass-work; but soon after the work commenced, the man became bankrupt, and the buildings were allowed to go to ruins.

GEOLOGICAL WONDERS.

AMONGST the most remarkable Geological Wonders of Scotland, we shall select an account of the Island of Staffa, and the Island of Ailsa; to these we shall subjoin another wonder, which, although by some supposed to be the work of art, we consider as produced by a geological cause-the Parallel Roads of Glenroy.

ISLAND OF STAFFA.

This small island of the Hebrides is celebrated for its basaltic pillars. It lies about five leagues west of the island of Mull, and three leagues from Icolm-kill; its form is oblong and irregular, about one mile in length, and half a mile in breadth; its coasts are steep and craggy; the sides being entirely bare, exhibiting superb basaltic columns, and hollowed by various caves, particularly those of Fingal and the Corvorant. The island is accessible only by a small entrance on the west side, where the surface slopes towards the sea; but it can only admit a small boat, and that in the calmest weather. Nearly opposite to this is the small island of Booshala, which is entirely composed of basaltic pillars. The most elevated part of the island of Staffa, is over the cave of Fingal, where it is 214 feet above the sea, at ordinary tides. Near the