Stereoscopic photograph of the entrance to Fingal's Cave, Staffa in the Inner Hebrides in Scotland. Standing on the right of the cave entrance are two men; one with his back to the viewer and another who stands in left side profile. Like the Giant's Caus

The wildest districts of Scotland

George Washington Wilson produced some of the first photographic souvenirs of Scotland

    GEORGE WASHINGTON WILSON (1823–93)

    Mouth of the Clam Shell Cave, Staffa

    c.1880 after an original of 1859

    Carbon print | 7.2 x 7.2 cm (image) | RCIN 2320049

    Resembling the curve of a whale’s ribs, Clamshell Cave can be found on the eastern coastline of Staffa. Like Fingal’s Cave, it too is made from basaltic columns twisted to form the shape of a clam. According to Wilson’s book of photographs English and Scottish Scenery, the cave measures 30 feet high, 18 feet wide and 130 feet long. It is tempting to speculate that one of the two figures in the rowing boat on the left of the foreground could be Sandy Macdonald, who rowed Wilson to Staffa from his home on Iona.

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