This is a photograph of the small Isle of Staffa which is a half mile long and a quarter mile wide and is uninhabited. The island lies off the northwest coast of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. The island is famous for its distinctive stepped basalt columns, created when the lava from volcanic eruptions cooled millions of years ago. Slow cooling produced nearly uniformly spaced centers of contraction forming mostly hexagonal columns varying from a few inches to almost six feet across. These columns form the cathedral like structure of Fingal's Cave, immortalized by Mendelssohn in his celebrated 1831 Hebrides Overature. Temperatures were in the mid-60's on this sunny to partly cloudy day.