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Arthur's Seat is the main peak of the group of hills in Scotland which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design". It is situated in the centre of the city of Edinburgh, about to the east of Edinburgh Castle. The hill rises above the city to a height of , provides excellent panoramic views of the city, is relatively easy to climb, and is popular for hillwalking. Though it can be climbed from almost any direction, the easiest and simplest ascent is from the east, where a grassy slope rises above Dunsapie Loch. At a spur of the hill, Salisbury Crags has historically been a rock climbing venue with routes of various degrees of difficulty; however due to hazards rock climbing is now restricted to the South Quarry and a free permit is required. Many claim that its name is derived from the myriad legends pertaining to King Arthur, such as the reference in ''Y Gododdin''. Some support for this theory may be provided by several other hilltop and mountaintop features in Britain which bear the same or similar names, such as the peak of Ben Arthur (The Cobbler) in the western highlands, sometimes known as Arthur's Seat,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Hill Names and the John Smith Question )〕 and Arthur's Chair on the ridge called Stone Arthur in the Cumbrian lake district. There is no traditional Scottish Gaelic name for Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, but William Maitland proposed that the name was a corruption of ''Àrd-na-Said'', implying the "Height of Arrows", which over the years became Arthur's Seat (perhaps via "Archer's Seat"). Alternatively, John Milne's proposed etymology of ''Àrd-thir Suidhe'' meaning "place on high ground" uncomfortably requires the transposition of the name elements.〔http://www.us.archive.org/GnuBook/?id=gaelicplacenames00milnuoft#6〕 == Natural heritage == Arthur's Seat is the largest of the three parts of the Arthur's Seat Volcano site of special scientific interest which is designated to protect its important geology (see below), grassland habitats and uncommon plant and animal species. Like the castle rock on which Edinburgh Castle is built, it was formed by an extinct volcano system of Carboniferous age (approximately 350 million years old), which was eroded by a glacier moving from west to east during the Quaternary (approximately the last two million years), exposing rocky crags to the west and leaving a tail of material swept to the east. This is how the Salisbury Crags formed and became basalt cliffs between Arthur's Seat and the city centre. From some angles, Arthur's Seat resembles a lion couchant.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Arthur's Seat 'Lion' from St. Leonard's Bank )〕 Two of the several extinct vents make up the 'Lion's Head' and the 'Lion's Haunch'. Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags adjoining it helped form the ideas of modern geology as it is currently understood. It was in these areas that James Hutton observed that the deposition of the sedimentary and formation of the igneous rocks must have occurred at different ages and in different ways than the thinking of that time said they did. It is possible to see a particular area known as Hutton’s Section in the Salisbury Crags where the magma forced its way through the sedimentary rocks above it to form the dolerite sills that can be seen in the Section. The hill bears a strong resemblance to the Cavehill in Belfast in terms of its geology and proximity to a major urban site. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arthur's Seat」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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