Шотландиядағы Фингал үңгірі

Sea cave in Scotland
the concert overture of the same name by [[Felix Mendelssohn

Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, known for its natural acoustics. The National Trust for Scotland owns the cave as part of a national nature reserve. It became known as Fingal's Cave after the eponymous hero of an epic poem by 18th century Scots poet historian James Macpherson.

Fingal's Cave is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns within a Paleocene lava flow and is similar in structure to both the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland and Ulva. In these locations, cooling on the upper and lower surfaces of the solidified lava resulted in contraction and fracturing, starting in a blocky tetragonal pattern and transitioning to a regular hexagonal fracture pattern with fractures perpendicular to the cooling surfaces. As cooling continued these cracks gradually extended toward the centre of the flow, forming the long hexagonal columns we see in the wave eroded cross section today. Similar hexagonal fracture patterns are found in desiccation cracks in mud where contraction is due to loss of water instead of cooling.

Fingal's Cave was originally part of the Ulva estate of the Clan MacQuarrie from an early date until 1777. The cave was brought to the attention of the English speaking world by 18th century naturalist Sir Joseph Banks in 1772. It became known as Fingal's Cave after 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 (meaning "white stranger") through a misunderstanding of the name which in old Gaelic would appear as "Finn". The legend of the Giant's Causeway has Finn (or Fionn) building the causeway between Ireland and Scotland.

The cave has a large arched entrance and is filled by the sea. Several sightseeing cruises organised from April to September by local companies pass the entrance to the cave. Mendelssohn's overture popularized the cave as a tourist destination. In 1860 the German novelist Theodor Fontane visited the cave and described it in his travel report Jenseit des Tweed (Beyond the Tweed, Pictures and Letters from Scotland), Queen Victoria also made the trip. Artist Matthew Barney used the cave along with the Giant's Causeway for the opening and closing scenes of his art film, Cremaster 3. In 2008, the video artist Richard Ashrowan spent several days recording the interior of Fingal's Cave for an exhibition at the Foksal Gallery in Poland. One of Pink Floyd's early songs bears this location's name. This instrumental was written for the film Zabriskie Point, but not used. Lloyd House at Caltech has a mural representing Fingal's Cave. The Alistair MacLean novel based movie, When Eight Bells Toll, starring Anthony Hopkins, was filmed there. It is likely that the township of Fingal, Tasmania was named after MacPherson's poetry rather than the cave itself.

Wood Nuttall Encyclopaedia, 1907: 69 m (227 ft) deep, 20 m (66 ft) high. National Public Radio, 2005: 45 m (150 ft) deep; 22 m (72 ft) high. Show Caves of the World: 85 m (279 ft) deep; 23 m (75 ft) high.