Have You Seen This Nature-Made Cathedral?


by - Date: 2006-12-05 - Word Count: 397 Share This!

How many cathedral have you seen on your holidays? Which is the most awesome and magnificent one that you have seen? Can you name it? I believe that you will like some of those that you have seen before based on your own experienced, books or documentary film. Sir Joseph Banks, the great botanist and explorer wrote "Compared to this, what are all the cathedrals and the palaces built by men!".

This so-called "cathedral" is the Fingal's cave of Scotland. The cave is located at the southern end of the Island of Staffa, Scotland. The Island of Staffa is located in the Inner Hebrides. The whole island is basaltic and it has the same feature as that of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland. The roof of the cave is made of a crust of volcanic slag. On one side of the cave, visitors can access to a shadowy interior whereby they can see yellow stalactites glisten against the fluted walls.

Fingal's cave is called Uamh Binn in Gaelic, which also means Melodious Cave. This name was attributed to its tuneful acoustic. It was told that in 1829, Felix Mendelssohn, the great German composer, came to the island of Staffa by rowing a boat. As he approached the cave, the sound produced by the smashing waves against the cave gave him inspiration to pen down a melody. It was told that this brief melody became the tune of his overture, The Hebrides, also know as the Fingal's cave. Perhaps you can try what Felix Mendelssohn did if you need to write an overture!

Sir Robert Peel, the Victorian statesman was told that he became a poet on approaching the cave. He wrote "had seen the temple not made with hands, had felt the majestic swell of ocean, the pulsation of the great Atlantic, beating in its inmost sanctuary."

Finally, Scots novelist Sir Walter Scott described Fingal's Cave as "one of the most extraordinary places I ever beheld. It exceeded, in my mind, every description I had heard of it, composed entirely of basaltic pillars as high as the roof of a cathedral, and running deep into the rock, eternally swept by a deep and swelling sea, and paved, as it were, with ruddy marble, baffles all description."

With so many praises from these great men, this awesome and magnificent cave is definite worth a visit when you are in Scotland.


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