 The archipelago is the site of many of the most spectacular sea cliffs in the British Isles . Baxter and Crumley ( 1988 ) suggest that St Kilda : " ... is a mad , imperfect God 's hoard of all unnecessary lavish landscape luxuries he ever devised in his madness . These he has scattered at random in Atlantic isolation 100 miles from the corrupting influences of the mainland , 40 miles west of the westmost Western Isles . He has kept for himself only the best pieces and woven around them a plot as evidence of his madness . " 
