Bass Rock
a remarkable island rock of Haddingstonshire, Scotland, near the mouth of the Firth of Forth, 2 miles from Canty Bay, and 34 miles E. N. E. of North Berwick. Composed of volcanic greenstone and trap tuff, it is about a mile in circumference, nearly round, and 313 feet high. It is inaccessible on all sides except the S., where it shelves down to the water. It is inhabited by countless numbers of solan geese and other birds. A cavern tunnels the rock from W. to E., and is accessible at low tide.
In 756 St. Balthere or Baldred died in a hermitage on the Bass Rock; in 1316 it came into the possession of the Lauder family. In 1671 Charles II. purchased it for £4,000, and within its dreary dun- 1894. He became professor of history geons many of the most eminent of the at Trinity College, and later at Smith Covenanters were confined during his College. His works include "Consti- and James II.'s reign. The Bass was tutional Beginnings in North Carolina," the last spot in the British Islands which "Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina," "Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina," "Slavery in the State of North Carolina," "The War of the Regulation," "The Federalist System" (1906) "Life of Andrew Jackson" (1911) ; "Short History U. S." (1916); "Story of the Great War" (1920); etc.