“Thus, for example, the chalky cliffs may be discovered a little eastward from Portrush; after a short course, they are suddenly depressed to the water’s edge, under Dunluce Castle, and, soon after, lost entirely in passing near the basalt-hill of Dunluce, whose craigs, near the sea, are all columnar.  At the river Bush the lime-stone recovers, and skims a moment above the level of the sea, but immediately vanishes in approaching towards the great basalt promontory of Bengore, under which it is completely lost for the space of more than three miles.

“Eastward from thence, beyond Dunsaverock Castle, it again emerges, and, rising to a considerable height, forms a beautiful barrier to White Park Bay and the Ballintoy shore.  After this it suffers a temporary depression near the basalt hill of Knocksoghy, and then ranges along the coast as far as Ballycastle Bay.

“Fairhead, standing with magnificence on its massy columns of basaltes, again exterminates it; and once again it rises to the eastward, and pursues its devious course, forming, on the Glenarm shores, a line of coast the most fantastically beautiful that can be imagined.

“If this, tedious expedition have not entirely worn out your patience, let us now take a view of the coast of Ragery itself, from the lofty summit of Fairhead, which overlook it.  Westward we see its white cliff rising abruptly from the ocean, corresponding accurately in materials and elevation with those of the opposite shore, and like them, crowned with a venerable load of the same vitrifiable rock.  Eastward, we behold it dip to the level of the sea, and soon give place to many beautiful arrangements of basalt pillars which form the eastern end of the island, and lie opposite to the basaltes of Fairhead, affording in every part a reasonable presumption that the two coasts were formerly connected, and that each was created and deranged by the same causes extensively operating over both.

“But it is not in these larger features alone that the similitude may be traced; the more minute and accidental circumstances serve equally well to ascertain it.

“Thus, an heterogeneous mass of freestone, coals, iron-ore, etc. which forms the east side of Ballycastle Bay, and appears quite different from the common fossils of the country, may be traced also directly opposite, running under Rathlin, with circumstances which almost demonstrably ascertain it to be the same vein.

“What I would infer from hence is, that this whole coast has undergone considerable changes; that those abrupt promontories, which now run wildly into the ocean, in proud defiance of its boisterous waves, have been rendered broken and irregular by some violent convulsion of nature; and that the island of Ragery, standing as it were in the midst between this and the Scottish coast, may be the surviving fragment of a large tract of country which, at some period of time, has been buried in the deep.”