The Saddle Island Overture?

The Saddle Island Overture?

To the editor:

I much enjoyed Randy Purinton’s article describing the hexagonal basalt columns that appear on Saddle Island. He points out that another example of this geological formation, the Giant’s Causeway, is found on the Antrim coastline of Northern Ireland. Readers may be interested to know that a further, fascinating example occurs off the east coast of Scotland, not very far by sea from the Giant’s Causeway. The tiny island of Staffa (reached by motorboat from Mull or Iona) is made up of these basalt columns, and topped by a thin veneer of soil that sports some tufts of grass. Visitors disembark, with difficulty, directly onto the hexagonal rocks, before setting out for Fingal’s cave, a narrow cavern that burrows back 90 feet into the island. Hexagonal basalt columns form its walls and ceiling; the sea sluices in and out, busily and noisily.

Felix Mendelssohn, a lover of Scotland, visited Staffa (under sail) in the nineteenth century, was awed by its majesty, and immortalized it in his overture “Fingal’s Cave.” Perhaps Randy Purinton is, even now, working on the “Saddle Island Overture.”

Valerie Lester

Annapolis, Md.