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WONDERS OF NATURE
Bridge of the Giants. Nature miracle
In the north-east of the island of Ireland, on the shores of the North Strait, leading from the Atlantic to the Irish Sea, rise low, a little over half a kilometer, the mountains of Antrim. They are composed of black basalts - traces of the activity of ancient volcanoes that rose along the giant fault that separated Ireland from Great Britain 60 million years ago. Covers of black lavas erupted from their craters formed the coastal mountains on the Irish coast and in the Hebrides, on the other side of the North Channel.
An amazing breed - this basalt! Liquid, easily flowing in molten form (basalt flows sometimes rush along the slopes of volcanoes at speeds up to 50 kilometers per hour), it cracks when it cools and solidifies, forming regular hexagonal prisms. From a distance, basalt cliffs resemble huge organs with hundreds of black pipes. And when the lava flow flows into the sea, sometimes such bizarre formations appear that it’s hard not to believe in their magical origin. Just such a joke of nature can be observed at the foot of Antrim. A kind of "road to nowhere" separates from the volcanic massif here. From above, it looks like a dam paved with hexagonal paving stones, going 150 meters into the sea, and then suddenly breaking off. But the "cobblestones" of this paving stone are a bit too big: each one and a half meters in diameter! The dam rises six meters above the sea and consists of approximately 40 basalt columns. It looks like an unfinished bridge across the strait, conceived by some fabulous giant, and is called "The Bridge of the Giants". As early as 200 years ago, fierce disputes boiled over the alleged reasons for its appearance. Some scientists believed that the surf exposed a petrified bamboo forest here, others thought that these were huge crystals formed in the waters of the ancient sea. Only later was the volcanic origin of the amazing hexagons proven. It is clear that the ancient Celts, who inhabited Ireland a thousand years ago, could not help but notice the Bridge of the Giants. And having noticed, they could not help but try to find an explanation for this unusual building, to the best of their imagination and in accordance with the traditions of their folklore. One of the ancient Irish legends tells that the giant Finn McCool built the Bridge in ancient times in order to attack his sworn enemy, the giant Finn Gall, who lived in the Hebrides. Finn McCool drove the poles one at a time into the seabed until he built a dam across the entire strait, after which he lay down to sleep before the duel. Meanwhile, Finn Gall saw the road paved by his rival, and decided to outwit him - to attack first. On the shore, he saw a sleeping giant and was struck by his enormous growth. "Who is that? Is it Finn McCool?" he asked the giant's wife, who had approached. "What are you! This is just his son, he will not get his father to the waist!" - she lied, deciding to scare the enemy. Terrified at the thought that he would have to fight with such a giant, Finn Gall rushed to run along the dam to his native shore. But on the way, he caught himself and began to destroy the bridge. Only the beginning of it he was afraid to touch, fearing to wake McCool. That is why the remains of the dam go into the sea from the foot of Antrim ... For a long time, this legend was considered just a fictional poetic story, not associated with any particular place. Only at the end of the XNUMXth century did the Bishop of Derry become convinced of the reality of the existence of the Bridge of the Giants. But only a hundred years later, when an illustrated description of an unusual natural phenomenon was published with the text of an ancient legend attached, the mass pilgrimage of the public to the coast of the strait began. The popularity of the Bridge of the Giants was also facilitated by the fact that it is located only fifty kilometers from the large city of Belfast, and it was not difficult to reach it in a day on horseback or in a carriage. In addition, the path to the mysterious natural dam ran through amazingly picturesque places. On the coast of County Antrim, there is no shortage of beautiful bays framed by black lava cliffs, cozy beaches, rocky islets with mysterious caves and high gloomy capes protected by slender basalt columns, against which the foamy wave of the surf resounds ... Interestingly, on the eastern shore of the North Channel, off the coast of Scotland, basalt covers are also found in many places. They look especially impressive on the small island of Staff in the Hebrides archipelago, 120 kilometers from the Finn McCool bridge. The waves that undermined the base of the island exposed the slender rows of 40-meter basalt columns that make up, as it were, the foundation of Staffa. From a distance it seems that the island rests on a palisade of black faceted piles. In one place, the sea washed away the less durable part of the lava flow, carving out a giant cave-niche 60 meters deep in it. Its walls, base and vault are made of basalt hexagons, similar to those that formed the Bridge of the Giants. At one time, the President of the London Geographical Society, the famous naturalist Joseph Banks, a member of Cook's first voyage, visited Staff Island. Shocked by the size of the grandiose cave, quite suitable for a giant to live in, he suggested that it be called Fingal's Grotto, in honor of the legendary rival Finn MacCool. The name, coined by Banks, has taken root, and now both giants from ancient legend have a unique natural monument near the shores of the North Strait, associated with the history of their rivalry. The gloomy picturesqueness of Fingal's Cave has inspired romantic poets since the XNUMXth century to create poems and ballads about this giant's dwelling. The Bridge of the Giants, or, as it was also called, the Path of the Giants, was no less popular with writers. The grotto and the path are described in many novels and short stories of past times. Byron and Shelley, Thackeray and Fielding paid tribute to basalt monuments. These romantic rocks were also sung by Russian poets, in particular Zhukovsky. Later, in the XNUMXth century, the composer Mendelssohn wrote, after visiting Scotland, his famous musical play Fingal's Cave. And Joseph Banks, already mentioned by us, appreciated these wonders of nature simply and expressively:
But due to the inaccessibility of Staffa Island, most people know Fingal's Grotto only from photographs. Any inquisitive traveler can easily get to the Irish basalt dam from the capital of Ulster - Belfast. And, really, it is worth visiting Northern Ireland in order, like the ancient giants, to walk along the black hexagonal pillars polished by the sea of the legendary Bridge of the Giants. Author: B.Wagner
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