But it cools and solidifies from the top downwards, so this pattern of cracks moves down through the rock as it cools layer by layer. You can see that this is a fairly disorderly structure, and at first the solidifying volcanic rock looks like that too. The same thing happens in mud as it dries, and the result is the familiar web of cracks that we see in parched river and lake beds. But as it contracts everywhere at once, stresses build up everywhere in the rock, and it starts to crack. As it cools, it contracts - nearly every material does this, just as they expand when they get hot. ![]() The government had already dispatched tropps to guard the city against looters before geologists pointed out that this wasn't a human construction at all but something that occurs in nature.īut how are such things formed? In 1875 the Irish engineer and geologist Robert Mallett proposed that the pillars arise as molten volcanic rock cools. In 1998 there were reports of how a documentary film-maker in Nicaragua had discovered the ruins of an ancient lost city, consisting of 62 faceted columns of basaltic rock. The geometric columns of Fingal's cave and the Giant's Causeway are echoed elsewhere around the globe - for example, there is a formation called the Devil's Postpile in the Sierra Nevada in California. It seems almost incredible that a structure as regular as this can really arise unplanned in the natural world, and there are many examples of how scientists, natural historians and others have been totally misled by them by assuming automatically that they must be the product of human intelligence. This is an example of spontaneous pattern formation. At Fingal's Cave and the Giant's Causeway, the forces of nature have conspired to produce such a pattern without, we must presume, any blueprint or foresight or design. When we make an architectural pattern like this, it is through careful planning and construction, with each individual element cut to shape and laid in place. There are something like 40,000 pillars of rock in the giant's Causeway, and they generally have this extraordinarily regular and geometric honeycomb structure. Now, this of course has its counterpart on the west coast of Ireland itself: the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, built in legend by the giant Finn MacCool. Close up, you can see the regularity that Banks spoke about: hexagonal cross-sections. ![]() What now is the boast of the architect! Regularity, the only part in which he fancied himself to exceed his mistress, Nature, is here found in her possession, and here it has been for ages undescribed."īanks had noticed that the entrance to the cave was flanked by these great pillars of rock. "Compared to this what are the cathedrals or palaces built by men! Mere models or playthings, as diminutive as his works will always be when compared with those of nature. But it also made an impression on an awestruck Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, when he sailed to Staffa in 1772 during an expedition to Iceland. ![]() This talk is accompanied by a Powerpoint presentationįingal's Cave on the island of Staffa, near Mull in Scotland, has inspired artists (this is Turner) and composers - Felix Mendelsohn wrote his orchestral piece named after the cave in 1829. PATTERNS IN ART AND NATURE - Philip Ball Notes for a talk delivered at Dulwich Picture Gallery, May 2003
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