Ardtun

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Ardtun, a grand basaltic headland in the SW of Mull, Argyllshire, projecting from the N side of the Ross of Mull, at the mouth of Loch Scriden. It is cut by a wild ravine, called the Goblins' Dell; it rises to a height of about 130 feet; it shows basaltic scarcely inferior to those of Staffa; and it includes a thin stratum of coal beneath its basalt, and three leaf beds aggregately about 6 feet thick, and probably belonging to the middle portion of the geognostic Tertiary period. Dr Johnson, when on his way from Inch Kenneth to Iona, greatly admired its columnar formation; and Dr Macculloch, the present Duke of Argyll, and the late Professor Edward Forbes, made interesting investigations into its geological peculiarities.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer