Discover

:''For the overture of the same name by Mendelssohn, see Hebrides Overture.''



'Fingal's Cave' is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, part of a National Nature Reserve owned by the National Trust for Scotland.^[1] It is formed entirely from hexagonally-jointed basalt columns, similar in structure to (and part of the same ancient lava flow as) the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. In both cases, the cooling surface of the mass of hot lava cracked in a hexagonal pattern in a similar way to drying mud cracking as it shrinks, and these cracks gradually extended down into the mass of lava as it cooled and shrank to form the columns which were subsequently exposed by erosion.Formation of basalt columns / pseudocrystals
Its size and naturally arched roof,^[2] and the eerie sounds produced by the echoes of waves, give it the atmosphere of a natural cathedral. The cave's Gaelic name, ''Uamh-Binn'', means "cave of melody".^[3]
The cave was "discovered" by 18th-century naturalist Sir Joseph Banks in 1772.^3[4] It became known as Fingal's Cave after classical composer Felix Mendelssohn visited in 1829 and wrote ''Die Hebriden'' (in English, ''Fingal's Cave Opus 26''), inspired by the weird echoes in the cave.^[5]3 Fingal, ''Fionnghall'' meaning "white stranger",^[6] was the eponymous hero of an epic poem by 18th-century Scots poet-historian James Macpherson. It formed part of his Ossian cycle of poems claimed to have been based on old Scottish Gaelic poems. In Irish mythology, the hero Fingal is known as Fionn mac Cumhaill, and it is suggested that Macpherson rendered the name as Fingal through a misapprehension of the name which in old Gaelic would appear as Finn.^[7] The legend has Fionn or Finn building the causeway between Ireland and Scotland.
Mendelssohn's overture popularized the cave as a tourist destination.³⁴ Other famous 19th-century visitors included author Jules Verne, poets William Wordsworth, John Keats and Alfred, Lord Tennyson,¹ and impressionist artist J. M. W. Turner, who painted "Staffa, Fingal's Cave" in 1832.^[8] The playwright August Strindberg also sets scenes from his play A Dream Play in a place called "Fingal's Grotto." Queen Victoria also made the trip.³¹
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."^[9]
The cave has a large arched entrance and is filled by the sea; however, boats cannot enter.³ Several local companies include a pass by the cave in sightseeing cruises from April to September.²³ However, it is also possible to land elsewhere on the island and walk to the cave overland, where a row of fractured columns form a walkway just above high-water level permitting exploration on foot.⁹ From the inside, the entrance seems to frame the sacred island of Iona across the water.²
Pink Floyd named one of their songs after the cave.

Contents

The dimensions of the cave

References

The dimensions of the cave

★ Wood-Nuttal Encyclopaedia, 1907: 69 m (227 ft) deep, 20 m (66 ft) high.^[10]

★ National Public Radio: 45 m (150 ft) deep; 22 m (72 ft) high.^[11]

★ Show Caves of the World: 85 m (279 ft) deep; 23 m (75 ft) high.³

References

★
1. National Trust for Scotland: Fingal's Cave
2. The Internet Guide to Scotland
3. Show Caves of the World
4. Caves and Caving in the UK
5. Galveston Symphony Program Notes: Mendelssohn
6. Behind the Name: View Name: Fingal
7. Notes to the first edition
8. The Art Archive, JM Turner
9. Gordon Grant Tours: Fingal's Cave
10. Wood-Nuttal Encyclopaedia, 1907
11. National Public Radio