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VON TROIL’S LETTERS ON ICELAND. 7°07
Proceeding now along fhore round the north end of the ifland, you arrive at Ouva na
carve, or the Cormorant’s Cave: here the ftratum under the pillars is lifted up very
high ; the pillars above it are confiderably lefs than thofe at the N. W. end of the ifland,
but {till very confiderable. Beyond is a bay, which cuts deep into the ifland, rendering
it in that place not more than a quarter of a mileover. On the fides of this bay, efpe-
cially beyond a little valley, which almoft cuts the ifland into two, are two {tages of pil-
lars, but fmall; however, having a ftratum between them exactly the fame as that above
them, formed of innumerable little pillars, fhaken out of their places, and leaning in all
directions.
Having paffed this bay, the pillars totally ceafe: the rock is of a dark-brown ftone,
and no figns of regularity occur till you have paffed round the S. E. end of the ifland (a
{pace almoft as large as that occupied by the pillars), which you meet with again on the
weit fide, beginning to form themfelves irregularly, as if the ftratum had an inclination
to that form, and foon arrive at the bending pillars where I began.
The ftone of which the pillars are formed is a coarfe kind of bafalts, very much re-
fembling the Giant’s Caufeway in Ireland, though none of them are near fo neat as the
fpecimens of the latter, which I have feen at the Britifh Mufeum, owing chiefly to the
colour, which in ours is a dirty brown, in the Irifh a fine black: indeed the whole pro-
duction feems very much to refemble the Giant’s Caufeway, with which I fhould wil-
lingly compare it, had I any account of the former before me.
Thus much we have taken from Mr. Banks’s account of the ifland of Staffa—which
Mr. Pennant affures the public, in a note to his Tour in Scotland (p. 269), was copied
from his Journal, concluding in thefe words: ‘I take the liberty of faying (what by
this time that gentleman, meaning Mr. Banks, is well acquainted with) that Staffa is a
genuine mafs of bafalts, or Giant’s Caufeway ; but in moft refpects fuperior to the Irifh
in grandeur.”
We think Mr. Pennant might have fpared his reader this information, as Mr. Banks
in his account informs us, that it is a Giant’s Caufeway formed of coarfe bafalts,
LETTER XXII.—rrom cHEVALIER IHRE TO DR. TROIL.
Concerning the Edda.
SIR, Upfala, October 1, 1776.
AccorpDIneG to your requeft, I fend you an anfwer to the objections made by Mr.
Schloczer again{t my opinion of the Edda, which, together with a tranflation of my
letter to Mr. Lagerbring, on the fubject of a manufcript of the Icelandic Edda, is, as you
know, inferted in that gentleman’s Icelandic hiftory.
It gives me great pleafure to find that my thoughts on thefe fubjetts have been exa-
mined by men of learning in Germany, by which means a number of falfe notions
which had been formed on the fubject and defign of this book have been removed ;
and I am very happy to receive any objections which may tend to convince me that I
have been miftaken.
Though I now refume the pen, it is not fo much with any immediate defign to refute
thofe objections which have been made againft me, as to give thofe accounts and expla-
nations which have been required of me, and which I think myfelf more capable of
doing than any other perfon, as I can command the codex whenever I think proper.
Mr. Schloczer and I propofe the fame end to ourfelves, namely, the inveftigation of truth.
Mr. Schloczer’s firft objection is, that I have not given a complete defcription of the
AE2 manuicript,
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