Chapter XII: Flint Spearhead and Basalt Axes Found Under (4)

[105] Read before Section H of the British Association at the Dublin Meeting, September, 1908, published in _Nature_, December 24, 1908, pp. 236-238.

[106] Published in _London Devonian Year-Book_, 1910.

[107] "History of Ireland," book i., chap. x.

[108] See "Annals of the Four Masters," vol. i., note at p. 24.

The Rev. William Hamilton, D.D.[109]

AN EARLY EXPONENT OF THE VOLCANIC ORIGIN OF THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY

"Here, hapless Hamilton, lamented name!
To fire volcanic traced the curious frame,
And, as his soul, by sportive fancy's aid,
Up to the fount of time's long current strayed,
Far round these rocks he saw fierce craters boil,
And torrent lavas flood the riven soil:
Saw vanquished Ocean from his bounds retire,
And hailed the wonders of creative Fire."

DRUMMOND.

These lines are taken from a poem, "The Giant's Causeway," written in 1811, when the nature of the basaltic rocks was regarded as doubtful, and many held that their origin was to be traced to the action of water rather than fire. Hamilton is rightly brought forward as a champion of the volcanic theory. In his "Letters concerning the Northern Coast of Antrim," published towards the close of the eighteenth century, he adduces strong reasons to show that the Giant's Causeway is no isolated freak of Nature, but part of a vast lava field which covered Antrim and extended far beyond the Scottish islands. Nor does he confine his attention to geology, but fulfils the promise on the title page, giving an account of the antiquities, manners, and customs of the country. To those who care to read of this part of the world before the days of railroads and electric tramways, when Portrush was a small fishing village, and the lough which divides Antrim from Down bore the name of the ancient city of Carrickfergus, this old volume will possess many attractions. Three copies lie before me; two belong to editions published in the author's lifetime; the third was printed in Belfast in 1822, and contains a short memoir and a portrait of Dr. Hamilton. The latter is taken from one of those black silhouettes by which, before the art of photography was known, our grandfathers strove to preserve an image of those they loved. In this imperfect likeness we can see below the wig a massive forehead, and features which betoken no small determination of character. We can well believe that we are gazing on the face of a scholar, a man of science, a divine, of one who believed that death, even in the tragic form in which it came to him, was but the laying aside of a perishable machine, the casting away of an instrument no longer able to perform its functions.

William Hamilton was born in December, 1757, in Londonderry, where the family had resided for nearly a century, his grandfather having been one of the defenders of the city during the famous siege. Little is known of his boyhood. Before he was fifteen he entered the University of Dublin, and after a distinguished career obtained a fellowship in 1779. It was while continuing his theological and literary studies that his attention was drawn to the new sciences of chemistry and mineralogy. We can imagine the ardent student attracting around him a band of kindred spirits, who, meeting on one evening of the week under the name of Palæosophers, studied the Bible and ancient writings bearing on its interpretation, and the next, calling themselves Neosophers, discussed the phenomena of Nature, and the discoveries of Cavendish, or the views of Buffon and Descartes. Nor did his marriage in 1780 to Sarah Walker interrupt these pursuits.

Hamilton was one of the founders of the Royal Irish Academy, and dedicated his "Letters concerning the Coast of Antrim" to the Earl of Charlemont, the first president of that body. The book opens with an account of his visit to the Island of Raghery or Rathlin, where he was charmed with the primitive manners of the people and the friendly relations existing between them and their landlord. He examined the white cliffs, the dark basaltic columns, and the ruins of the old castle, where Robert Bruce is said to have made a gallant defence against his enemies. Here he found cinders embedded in the mortar, showing that the lime used in building the walls had been burnt with coal. This is adduced as a proof that the coal-beds near Fair Head had been known at an early period, possibly at a time anterior to the Danish incursions of the ninth and tenth centuries--a view confirmed by the discovery of an ancient gallery extending many hundred yards underground, and in which the remains of the tools and baskets of the prehistoric miners were found.

In a later letter a history is given of the Giant's Causeway, and of the various opinions which have been held regarding its origin. Beginning with the old tradition[110] that the stones had been cut and placed in position by the giant, Fin McCool or Fingal, when constructing a mighty mole to unite Ireland to Scotland, Hamilton alludes to the crude notions exhibited in some papers published in the early Transactions of the Royal Society. He criticizes severely "A True Prospect of the Giant's Causeway," printed in 1696 for the Dublin Society, showing how the imagination of the artist had planted luxuriant forest-trees on the wild bay of Port Noffer, and transformed basaltic rocks into comfortable dwelling-houses. The two beautiful paintings made by Mrs. Susanna Drury in 1740 are referred to in very different language, and anyone who has seen engravings of these will endorse his opinion, and feel that this lady has depicted, with almost photographic accuracy, the Causeway and the successive galleries of basaltic columns, which lend a weird and peculiar grandeur to the headlands of Bengore.

A large portion of Hamilton's work is occupied with a minute investigation of these headlands, and of the lofty promontory of Fair Head. A description is given of the jointed columns of the Causeway, whose surface presents a regular and compact pavement of polygon stones; we are told that this basaltic rock contains metallic iron, and that he has himself observed how, in the semicircular Bay of Bengore, the compass deviates greatly from its meridian, and each pillar or fragment of a pillar acts as a natural magnet. He also points out that columnar rocks are found in many parts of Antrim, and traces the basaltic plateau from the shores of Lough Foyle to the valley of the Lagan; nay more, he bids us extend our gaze, and remember "that whatever be the reasonings that fairly apply to the formation of the basaltes in our island, the same must be extended with little interruption over the mainland and western isles of Scotland, even to the frozen island of Iceland, where basaltic pillars are to be found in abundance, and where the flames of Hecla still continue to blaze."[111]

Hamilton argues, in opposition to the views of many of his contemporaries, that the vicinity of the Giant's Causeway to the sea has nothing whatever to do with the peculiar structure of its jointed columns, which he ascribes to their having been formed by the crystallization of a molten mass. The following are his words:

"Since, therefore, the basaltes and its attendant fossils[112] bear strong marks of the effects of fire, it does not seem unlikely that its pillars may have been formed by a process, exactly analogous to what is commonly denominated crystallization by fusion.... For though during the moments of an eruption nothing but a wasteful scene of tumult and disorder be presented to our view, yet, when the fury of those flames and vapours, which have been struggling for a passage, has abated, everything then returns to its original state of rest; and those various melted substances, which, but just before, were in the wildest state of chaos, will now subside and cool with a degree of regularity utterly unattainable in our laboratories."[113]

It is true that modern geologists would not apply the term "crystallization" to the process by which the basaltic columns have been formed, but all would agree that they have assumed their peculiar shape during the slow cooling of the molten lava of which they consist; thus Professor James Thomson[114] states that the division into prisms has arisen "by splitting, through shrinkage, of a very homogeneous mass in cooling."

It would be tedious to repeat the reasoning by which Hamilton, following in the steps of the French geologists, Desmarest and Faujas de St. Fond, establishes the volcanic origin of the basalt. It is true, he assumes the position of an impartial narrator, and brings forward at considerable length the objections which had been urged against this theory, but only to show that each one of them admits of a full and complete answer. Thus he states that the absence of volcanic cones does not embarrass the advocates of the system: "According to them, the basaltes has been formed under the earth itself and within the bowels of those very mountains where it could never have been exposed to view until, by length of time or some violent shock of nature, the incumbent mass must have undergone a very considerable alteration, such as should go near to destroy every exterior volcanic feature. In support of this, it may be observed that the promontories of Antrim do yet bear very evident marks of some violent convulsion, which has left them standing in their present abrupt situation, and that the Island of Raghery and some of the western isles of Scotland do really appear like the surviving fragments of a country, great part of which might have been buried in the ocean."[115]

We thus see that Hamilton clearly perceived that great changes, sufficient to sweep away lofty mountains, had taken place since those old lava streams had flowed over the land. It is true that science has advanced since his day with gigantic strides. Some things which he regarded as doubtful have become certain, and others which he regarded as certain have become doubtful, yet I trust that the preceding extracts will show that his account of the basaltic rocks of Antrim may still be read with interest and profit.

As an antiquarian, Hamilton touches on the evidences of early culture in Ireland. He mentions the large number of exquisitely wrought gold ornaments found in the bogs, and translates for us a poem of St. Donatus, which, although doubtless a fancy sketch, shows the reputation enjoyed by the island in the ninth century.

"Far westward lies an isle of ancient fame
By nature bless'd, and Scotia is her name,
An island rich--exhaustless is her store
Of veiny silver and of golden ore;
Her fruitful soil for ever teems with wealth,
With gems her waters, and her air with health.
Her verdant fields with milk and honey flow,
Her woolly fleeces vie with virgin snow;
Her waving furrows float with bearded corn,
And arms and arts her envy'd sons adorn.
No savage bear with lawless fury roves,
No rav'ning lion thro' her sacred groves;
No poison there infects, no scaly snake
Creeps through the grass, nor frog annoys the lake.
An island worthy of its pious race,
In war triumphant, and unmatch'd in peace."[116]

In referring to the doctrines and practices of the ancient Irish Church, Hamilton enters on the field of controversy. It shows how widely his book was known when we find the _Giornale Ecclesiastico_ of Rome taking exception to some of his views. This criticism led to the insertion in the second edition of the work, of a letter[117] dealing more fully with ecclesiastical matters. The reasoning, even when supported by the high authority of Archbishop Ussher, may possibly fail to convince us of the identity of the Church of St. Patrick and St. Columba with the Church of the Reformation; but we shall find abundant proof of the vigour and independence which characterized not only the early monks, but the Irish schoolmen of the Middle Ages.

Before this letter was published, Hamilton had accepted the living of Clondevaddock in Donegal, and had taken up his abode amid the wild but beautiful scenery surrounding Mulroy Bay. Here he expected to spend a tranquil life, watching over the education of his large family, and combining with his clerical duties the pursuit of science and literature. In a favourable situation for observing variations of temperature and the action of rain, wind, and tide, he pursued the investigation of a subject which had already engaged his attention before leaving Dublin. In a memoir[118] published after his death he suggests that the cutting down of the forests may have affected a sensible change in the climate of Ireland, and gives several instances of the encroachment of the sea sand on fertile and inhabited land. Perhaps the most striking is that of the town of Bannow in Wexford. It was a flourishing borough in the early part of the seventeenth century, while in his day the site was marked only by a few ruins, appearing above heaps of barren sand, and where at the time of an election a fallen chimney was used as the council table of that ancient and loyal corporation.

When we read the closing pages of this paper it is difficult to believe that troubled times were so near at hand; and even when he wrote his "Letters on the French Revolution," Hamilton could not have foreseen that he was soon to fall before the same spirit of wild vengeance, which claimed so many noble victims on the banks of the Seine and the Loire.

He acted as magistrate as well as clergyman, and during nearly seven years he was treated with respect and confidence by the people among whom he lived. No doubt the majority of them did not regard him as their pastor, but they appreciated his efforts for their temporal welfare; we are told that the country was advancing in industry and prosperity, and remained tranquil when other parts of Ulster were greatly disturbed. At last, however, the revolutionary wave reached this remote district, and a trivial incident inflamed the minds of the inhabitants against Dr. Hamilton.

On Christmas night, 1796, while the memorable storm which in the south drove the French fleet from Bantry Bay was at its height, a brig, laden with wine from Oporto, was shipwrecked on the coast of Fanet, not far from Dr. Hamilton's dwelling. In those days the peasantry regarded whatever was brought to them by the sea as lawful booty, and were little disposed to brook the interference of magistrate or clergyman. We are told "that Dr. Hamilton's active exertions on this melancholy occasion gave rise to feelings of animosity on the part of some of his parishioners." This animosity was fomented by popular agitators. A stormy period ensued. One evening a band of insurgents surrounded the parsonage demanding the release of some prisoners, and for more than twenty-four hours the house was closely besieged. Two of the servants made their way with difficulty to the beach, hoping to escape by sea and bring succour from Derry, but they found holes had been bored in the boats, which rendered them unserviceable. Dr. Hamilton acted with much courage and coolness. He refused to accede to the demands of his assailants, saying he was not to be intimidated by men acting in open violation of the laws; at the same time, by repressing the ardour of the guard of soldiers, he showed his anxiety to prevent bloodshed. In company with a naval officer, he undertook the perilous task of passing in disguise through the rebel cordon, and returned with a body of militia. On seeing this reinforcement, the peasantry lost courage, and, throwing away their arms, dispersed quickly to their homes, so that the victory was achieved without loss of life.

The country now became apparently more tranquil, and in early spring Dr. Hamilton paid a visit to the Bishop of the diocese at Raphoe. He was returning to his parish, when the roughness of the weather delayed his crossing Lough Swilly, and he turned aside to see a brother clergyman near Fahan. He was easily prevailed upon to pass the night in the hospitable rectory of Sharon, and no doubt the visit of an old college friend was hailed with delight by the crippled Dr. Waller, whose infirmities obliged him to lead a secluded life. Probably the conversation turned on the state of the country; Dr. Waller, his wife, and her niece would inquire about the perils from which their guest had recently escaped. Perhaps they would congratulate themselves on the security of their neighbourhood compared with the wilder parts of Donegal. Suddenly the tramp of a band of men was heard. It is said that Dr. Hamilton's quick ear first caught the sound, and knew it to be his death-knell; but he was not the only victim--his hostess fell before him. Let us hear the story of that terrible tragedy as it was reported to the Irish House of Commons. Speaking on March 6, 1797, four days after the event, Dr. Brown said:

"As that gentleman (Dr. Hamilton) was sitting with the family in Mr. Waller's house, several shots were fired in upon them, the house was broken open, and Mrs. Waller, in endeavouring to protect her helpless husband by covering him with her body, was murdered. Mr. Hamilton, from the natural love of life, had taken refuge in the lower apartments. Thence they forced him, and as he endeavoured to hold the door they held fire under his hand until they made him quit his hold. They then dragged him a few yards from the house, and murdered him in the most inhuman and barbarous manner."[119]

From a letter written by Dr. Hall to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (March, 1797), we learn that the assassins retired unmolested and undiscovered. Nor were any of them ever brought to justice, although popular tradition, among both Catholics and Protestants, says that misfortune dogged their footsteps, and each one of them came to an untimely end. Dr. Hamilton's body remained exposed during the night, and was only removed the following morning, when it was taken to Londonderry and interred in the Cathedral graveyard. Here his name is recorded on the family tombstone; and in 1890 his descendants erected a tablet to his memory in the chancel of the Cathedral.

Hamilton obtained the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1794, and shortly before his death he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. We have seen how he was cut off in the full vigour of mind and body--his last memoir unprinted--and surely we may echo the lament of his contemporaries, and feel that he was one who had conferred honour on his native land. Yet, while they mourned his loss as a public calamity, his friends would recall his words, and remember that to him death was but the entrance to a new life--the casting away of a covering which formed no part of his true self.

FOOTNOTES:

[109] Reprinted from the _Sun_, May, 1891.

[110] See Letter I., part ii., edition 1822.

[111] Letter VI., part ii., pp. 183, 184. Compare with this passage the following enunciation of the results of modern geological investigation. "A marked feature of this period in Europe was the abundance and activity of its volcanoes.... From the south of Antrim, through the west coast of Scotland, the Faröe Islands and Iceland, even far into Arctic Greenland, a vast series of fissure eruptions poured forth successive floods of basalt, fragments of which now form the extensive volcanic plateaux of these regions." (Sir A. Geikie, "Geological Sketches at Home and Abroad," pp. 347, 348).

[112] Hamilton uses this word in its old meaning of rock or stone. He expressly states that basalt does not contain the slightest trace of animal or vegetable remains.

[113] Letter VII., part ii., pp. 187, 188, 189.

[114] See "Collected Papers," p. 430, edited by Sir Joseph Larmor, Sec. R.S., M.P., and James Thomson, M.A.

[115] Letter VII., part ii., p. 194.

[116] Letter IV., part i., p. 52.

[117] Letter V, part i.

[118] See Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. vi., p. 27.

[119] See report in the _Belfast Newsletter_, March 6-10, 1797.

INDEX

Abbott, W. J. Lewis, F.G.S., 99, 100

Abernethy Round Tower, 57

Aino, 42

Antrim, old fort at, 36

Ardtole souterrain, vi

Armoy, 26, 90

Arranmore, 82

Backaderry souterrain, 7

Ballycairn Fort, 37, 38, 41

Ballycastle, 39, 50, 89

Ballyginney Fort and Souterrain, 7, 8

Ballyliffan, 52, 55

Ballymagreehan Fort and Souterrain, 6

Balor, 73-76, 79

Banshee, 31, 35, 42, 43, 56, 78

Beddoe, Dr., 100, 101

Bell, Robert, 97

Boyle, Owen, saves bride from fairies, 68-71

Bridget, Eve of St., 17, 18

Brownie, 51, 89

Burglauenen, destruction of, 53

Bury, Professor, 61

Cailleagh, 19

Campbell, J. F., 79, 80

Castlewellan, 6, 7

Chope, R. Pearse, B.A., 19, 20

"Churn," 19, 20

Cinderella, 47

Clark, Miss Jane, 22

Coal-mines, ancient, near Ballycastle, 39, 107-8

Columbkill, St., 63, 83

Cowan, Rev. Dr., 86, 87

Cruithnians, 58

Culdaff, 53

Culnady, 21, 22

Cushendall, 89, 98

Danes, 8-11, 28-31, 34, 37-42, 45, 51, 57, 77, 78, 88, 89, 102, 104

Derrick's Image of Ireland, 44, 45

Donaghmore, Co. Down, souterrain at, 86, 87

Donatus, St., poem describing Scotia or Ireland, 112

Downpatrick, rath at, 22, 36

Drumcrow, 27

Drury, Mrs. Susanna, 108

Dunglady Fort, 21, 22

Dunloe, Gap of, 10

Emania, 41

Fair Head, 49, 107, 108

Fairies, capture of women and children by, 26, 69-73
compared with African pygmies, 33, 34
dress of, 27, 88
a dwarf race, 13, 45, 104
dwelling under sea, 52, 53
inhabit forts and souterrains, 8, 31, 36, 86
intermarriage with the human race, 65 _et seq._
vanish, 25, 34

Fanshawe, Lady, 42, 43

Fargowan, 79

Fiacc's hymn, 61

Finglas, 79

Finn McCoul, 48-50, 76, 79, 90-95, 108

Finn, Lough, 79

Finns, 64, 78

Finntown, 65

Finvoy, 86

Frazer, J. G., D.C.L., 20, 21

Friel, John, saves young girl from the fairies, 71

Gempeler, D., 53

Giants, 79, 89, 90, 96, 99

Giant's Causeway, 50, 90, 105, 108-111

Glasdrumman Fort, 97, 98

Glenties, 65, 66, 79

Goll, 91

Gomme, Sir G. L., 54, 84, 85

Gottwerg and Gottwergini, 52, 54

Gray, John, B.Sc., 102, 104

Greenmount, Mote at, 36, 37, 40

Grey Man of the Path, 49

Grogach, 47, 50, 51, 57, 89, 99, 104

Gweedore, 68, 75

Ham, 32, 60, 73

Hamilton, Rev. W., D.D., F.T.C.D., 39, 105-118

Hanauer, Rev. J. E., 67

Harbison, Mann, 8, 11, 12

Harris, 59, 60

Harvest knots, 18, 19

Heather ale, 28, 29, 41

Herd (David), 13

Herman's Fort and Souterrain, 6, 7

Hobson, Mrs., viii, 30

Hunt, B., 72

Hyde, Dr. Douglas, 71

Infant carried off by fairies, but saved by father, 72, 73

Jegerlehner, Dr. J., 52, 54

Johnston, Sir Harry, 33, 34, 80

Keating, 60, 88, 103

Killelagh Church, 14, 15

Kilrea, 23

Kincasslagh, 68, 70, 78

Knockdhu, souterrain at, 30

Kollmann, Professor Julius, v, 59, 61, 62

Lenagh Townland, fort blown up, 97

Leprechaun, Lupracan, Luchorpan, 10, 32

Leslie, Rev. J. B., 9, 37

London Bridge legend, 84, 85

Luchter, 18

Lurach, St., church of, 22

Lytle, S. D., vi, 16

Maghera, Co. Down, 4, 7

Maghera, Co. Londonderry, 14-23

Manannan, 49, 95, 96

McKean, E. J., B.A., 19, 41

McKenna, Daniel, 14, 17, 18

MacKenzie, W. C., F.S.A.Scot., 58

MacRitchie, David, F.S.A.Scot., v, 12, 28, 29, 42, 57, 58, 96

Marshall, Dr. Eric, 81

Mortar, cemented with the blood of bullocks, 15

Mourne Mountains, 2, 28

Munro, Dr., 12

Neosophers, 107

New Guinea, pygmies in, 80, 81

Niederdorf, destruction of, 53, 54

Nuesch, Dr., 61

O'Donovan, Dr., 22, 75, 76, 103

O'Grady, Standish H., 32, 44, 61

O'Neill, Phelim, castle of, 15

Oughter, Lough, 9

Palæolithic man, 59, 99, 100

Palæosophers, 107

Patrick, St., 61, 63, 83

Pechts, 15, 16, 27, 31, 50, 57, 78, 99, 102, 104

Pennant, 29

Piskey Dwarfs of Cornwall, 101

Portstewart, 19, 38, 67

Rathlin Island, 90, 107

Red hair ascribed to fairies and Danes, 2, 9, 34, 37, 100
possibly the original hair colour in Europe, 100

Rhys, Sir John, 67, 101

Rochefort, Jorevin de, 40, 41

Roe, Valley of the, 19, 96, 97

Rosapenna, 65, 67, 71

Roughan Castle, 15

Rowan tree, 27

Rush crosses, 17, 18

Schaffhausen, skeletons of dwarfs discovered near, v, 61, 62, 104

Seals, belief that human beings could change into, 81, 82

Sealskin of Finn woman, 96

Sea sand, encroachment on land, 114

Smith, Dr. Robertson, 34, 35

Smith, Rev. Frederick, 99

Sidh, 44, 61

Sidis, 61

Silva Gadelica, 32, 44, 61

Souterrains, 6-8, 16, 30, 31, 36-41, 86, 87

Spy, men of, 12, 13

Staffa, 50

Stone circles at Aghlish, 97

Stranocum, souterrain at, 8

Sweeney, John, 82

Sword of light, 93, 94

Thomson, Professor James, 110

Tobermore, 17

Todas, 54

Tormore, 73

Tory Island, 73-76, 88, 96

Tuatha de Danann, 11, 12, 18, 29, 77, 102, 103

Tullamore Park, 2, 3

Wee, wee man, 13

Whitley, Rev. Gath, 101

Windele, John, 40

THE END

ELLIOT STOCK, 7, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C.

Transcriber's Note

Illustrations have been moved near the relevant section of the text.

Inconsistencies have been retained in spelling, hyphenation and grammar, except where indicated in the list below:

- "FAIRHEAD" changed to "FAIR HEAD" on Page xiii
- Period added after "inches" on Page 16
- Bracket added after "1854" in Footnote 8
- Period changed to comma after "304" in Footnote 13
- Comma changed to period after "1906" in Footnote 15
- Quote added before "furnished" on Page 89
- Period added after "669" in Footnote 103
- Period and quote added after "regions" in Footnote 111
- Period removed after "104" in Page 119
- Period added after "B" on Page 120
- "Niederdorff" changed to "Niederdorf" on Page 120

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