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When the
news of the "discovery" of an amazing natural phenomenon
broke on an unsuspecting world in 1693 it was by the presentation
of a paper to the Royal Society from Sir Richard Bulkeley, a fellow
of Trinity College, Dublin. The "discoverer" had, in fact,
been the then Bishop of Derry a year earlier. The news caused quite
a stir in 'the polite society' of the time and in 1697 a draughtsman
was sent to make drawings of the Natural Curiosity on the North East
tip of the island of Ireland.
What
seems remarkable to us now, in the 21st century, is that there was
much argument as to whether the Causeway had been created by men with
picks and chisels, by nature, or by the efforts of a giant. For in
the 17th century nothing like it had been seen before. As an artist,
Miss Susanna Drury spent, in 1740, quite some period of months on
site. Depicting the magnificence that she found, ensured that the
Causeway became noted on The Grand Tour. And it was not until 1771
that a Frenchman, Demarest, announced the origin of the causeway to
be the result of volcanic action. |
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