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diff --git a/28273.txt b/28273.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4132ec9 --- /dev/null +++ b/28273.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15802 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Cruise of the Betsey, by Hugh Miller + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Cruise of the Betsey + or, A Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides. With Rambles of a Geologist or, Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland + + +Author: Hugh Miller + + + +Release Date: March 8, 2009 [eBook #28273] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY*** + + +E-text prepared by Eric Hutton, Greg Bergquist, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Transcriber's note: + + The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been + faithfully preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have + been corrected. + + The pointing finger symbol in the advertisement section is + represented by -->. + + + + + +THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY; + +Or, + +A Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides. + +With + +RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST; + +Or, + +Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous +Deposits of Scotland. + +by + +HUGH MILLER, LL. D., + +Author of "The Old Red Sandstone," "Footprints of the Creator," +"My Schools and Schoolmasters," "The Testimony of the Rocks," Etc. + + + + + + + +Boston: +Gould and Lincoln, +59 Washington Street. +New York: Sheldon and Company. +Cincinnati: Geo. S. Blanchard. +1862. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by +Gould and Lincoln, +In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + +Authorized Edition. + +By a special arrangement with the late Hugh Miller, Gould And Lincoln +became the authorized American publishers of his works. By a similar +arrangement made with the family since his decease, they will also +publish his POSTHUMOUS WORKS, of which the present volume is the first. + + +Electrotyped by W. F. Draper, Andover, Mass. + +Printed by Geo. C. Rand & Avery, Boston. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Naturalists of every class know too well how HUGH MILLER died--the +victim of an overworked brain; and how that bright and vigorous spirit +was abruptly quenched forever. + +During the month of May (1857) Mrs. Miller came to Malvern, after +recovering from the first shock of bereavement, in search of health and +repose, and evidently hoping to do justice, on her recovery, to the +literary remains of her husband. Unhappily the excitement and anxiety +naturally attaching to a revision of her husband's works proved over +much for one suffering under such recent trial, and from an affection of +the brain and spine which ensued; and, in consequence, Mrs. Miller has +been forbidden, for the present, to engage in any work of mental labor. + +Under these circumstances, and at Mrs. Miller's request, I have +undertaken the editing of "The Cruise of the Betsey, or a Summer Ramble +among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides," as well as "The +Rambles of a Geologist," hitherto unpublished, save as a series of +articles in the "Witness" newspaper. The style and arguments of HUGH +MILLER are so peculiarly his own, that I have not presumed to alter the +text, and have merely corrected some statements incidental to the +condition of geological knowledge at the time this work was penned. "The +Cruise of the Betsey" was written for that well-known paper the +"Witness" during the period when a disputation productive of much bitter +feeling waged between the Free and Established Churches of Scotland; but +as the Disruption and its history possesses little interest to a large +class of the readers of this work, who will rejoice to follow their +favorite author among the isles and rocks of the "bonnie land," I have +expunged _some_ passages, which I am assured the author would have +omitted had he lived to reprint this interesting narrative of his +geological rambles. HUGH MILLER battled nobly for his faith while +living. The sword is in the scabbard: let it rest! + + W.S. SYMONDS. + +PENDOCK RECTORY, APRIL 1, 1858. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +PART I. + +THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY. + + +CHAPTER I. + + Preparation--Departure--Recent and Ancient Monstrosities--A Free + Church Yacht--Down the Clyde--Jura--Prof. Walker's + Experiment--Whirlpool near Scarba--Geological Character of the + Western Highlands--An Illustration--Different Ages of Outer and + Inner Hebrides--Mt. Blanc and the Himalayas "mere + upstarts"--Esdaile Quarries--Oban--A Section through Conglomerate + and Slate examined--McDougal's Dog-stone--Power of the Ocean to + move Rocks--Sound of Mull--The Betsey--The Minister's + Cabin--Village of Tobermory--The "Florida," a Wreck of the + Invincible Armada--Geologic Exploration and Discovery--At Anchor. 15 + + +CHAPTER II. + + The Minister's Larder--No Harbor--Eigg Shoes--_Tormentilla + erecta_--For the _Witness'_ Sake--Eilean Chaisteil--Appearance of + Eigg--Chapel of St. Donan--Shell-sand--Origin of Secondary + Calcareous Rock suggested--Exploration of Eigg--Pitchstone Veins--A + Bone Cave--Massacre at Eigg--Grouping of Human Bones in the + Cave--Relics--The Horse's Tooth--A Copper Sewing Needle--Teeth + found--Man a worse Animal than his Teeth show him to have been + designed for--Story of the Massacre--Another Version--Scuir of + Eigg--The Scuir a Giant's Causeway--Character of the + Columns--Remains of a Prostrate Forest. 31 + +CHAPTER III. + + Structure of the Scuir--A stray Column--The Piazza--A buried Pine + Forest the Foundation of the Scuir--Geological Poachers in a Fossil + Preserve--_Pinites Eiggensis_--Its Description--Witham's + Experiments on Fossil Pine of Eigg--Rings of the Pine--Ascent of + the Scuir--Appearance of the Top--White Pitchstone--Mr. Greig's + Discovery of Pumice--A Sunset Scene--The Manse and the Yacht--The + Minister's Story--A Cottage Repast--American Timber drifted to the + Hebrides--Agency of the Gulf Stream--The Minister's Sheep. 49 + + +CHAPTER IV. + + An Excursion--The Chain of Crosses--Bay of Laig--Island of + Rum--Description of the Island--Superstitions banished by pure + Religion--Fossil Shells--Remarkable Oyster Bed--New species of + Belemnite--Oolitic Shells--White Sandstone Precipices--Gigantic + Petrified Mushrooms--"Christabel" in Stone--Musical Sand--_Jabel + Nakous_, or Mountain of the Bell--Experiments of Travellers at + _Jabel Nakous_--Welsted's Account--_Reg-Rawan_, or the Moving + Sand--The Musical Sounds inexplicable--Article on the subject in + the North British Review. 66 + + +CHAPTER V. + + Trap-dykes--"Cotton Apples"--Alternation of Lacustrine with Marine + Remains--Analogy from the Beds of Esk--Aspect of the Island on its + narrow Front--The Puffin--Ru Stoir--Development of Old Red + Sandstone--Striking Columnar character of Ru Stoir--Discovery of + Reptilian Remains--John Stewart's wonder at the Bones in the + Stones--Description of the Bones--"Dragons, Gorgons, and + Chimeras"--Exploration and Discovery pursued--The Midway + Shieling--A Celtic Welcome--Return to the Yacht--"Array of Fossils + new to Scotch Geology"--A Geologist's Toast--Hoffman and his + Fossil. 85 + + +CHAPTER VI. + + Something for Non-geologists--Man Destructive--A Better and Last + Creation coming--A Rainy Sabbath--The Meeting House--The + Congregation--The Sermon in Gaelic--The Old Wondrous Story--The + Drunken Minister of Eigg--Presbyterianism without Life--Dr. + Johnson's Account of the Conversion of the People of Rum--Romanism + at Eigg--The Two Boys--The Freebooter of Eigg--Voyage resumed--The + Homeless Minister--Harbor of Isle Ornsay--Interesting Gneiss + Deposit--A Norwegian Keep--Gneiss at Knock--Curious + Chemistry--Sea-cliffs beyond Portsea--The Goblin Luidag--Scenery of + Skye. 105 + + +CHAPTER VII. + + Exploration resumed--Geology of Rasay--An Illustration--The Storr + of Skye--From Portree to Holm--Discovery of Fossils--An Island + Rain--Sir R. Murchison--Labor of Drawing a Geological Line--Three + Edinburgh Gentlemen--_Prosopolepsia_--Wrong Surmises corrected--The + Mail Gig--The Portree Postmaster--Isle Ornsay--An Old + Acquaintance--Reminiscences--A Run for Rum--"Semi-fossil + Madeira"--Idling on Deck--Prognostics of a Storm--Description of + the Gale--Loch Scresort--The Minister's lost _Sou-wester_--The Free + Church Gathering--The weary Minister. 123 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + Geology of Rum--Its curious Character illustrated--Rum famous for + Bloodstones--Red Sandstones--"Scratchings" in the Rocks--A + Geological Inscription without a Key--The Lizard--Vitality broken + into two--Illustrations--Speculation--Scuir More--Ascent of the + Scuir--The Bloodstones--An Illustrative Set of the Gem--M'Culloch's + Pebble--A Chemical Problem--The solitary Shepherd's House--Sheep + _versus_ Men--The Depopulation of Rum--A Haul of Trout--Rum Mode of + catching Trout--At Anchor in the Bay of Glenelg. 139 + + +CHAPTER IX. + + Kyles of Skye--A Gneiss District--Kyle Rhea--A Boiling Tide--A + "Take" of Sillocks--The Betsey's "Paces"--In the Bay at + Broadford--Rain--Island of Pabba--Description of the Island--Its + Geological Structure--Astrea--Polypifers--_Gryphoea + incurva_--Three Groups of Fossils in the Lias of Skye--Abundance of + the Petrifactions of Pabba--Scenery--Pabba a "piece of smooth, + level England"--Fossil Shells of Pabba--- Voyage resumed--Kyle + Akin--Ruins of Castle Maoil--A "Thornback" Dinner--The Bunch of + Deep Sea Tangle--The Caileach Stone--Kelp Furnaces--Escape of the + Betsey from sinking. 159 + + +CHAPTER X. + + Isle Orusay--The Sabbath--A Sailor-minister's Sermon for + Sailors--The Scuir Sermon--Loch Carron--Groups of Moraines--A sheep + District--The Editor of the _Witness_ and the Establishment + Clergyman--Dingwall--Conon-side revisited--The Pond and its + Changes--New Faces.--The Stonemason's Mark--The Burying-ground of + Urquhart--An old Acquaintance--Property Qualification for Voting in + Scotland--Montgerald Sandstone Quarries--Geological Science in + Cromarty--The Danes at Cromarty--The Danish Professor and the "Old + Red Sandstone"--Harmonizing Tendencies of Science. 178 + + +CHAPTER XI. + + Ichthyolite Beds--An interesting Discovery--Two Storeys of Organic + Remains in the Old Red Sandstone--Ancient Ocean of Lower Old + Red--Two great Catastrophes--Ancient Fish Scales--Their skilful + Mechanism displayed by examples--Bone Lips--Arts of the Slater and + Tiler as old as Old Red Sandstone--Jet Trinkets--Flint + Arrow-heads--Vitrified Forts of Scotland--Style of grouping Lower + Old Red Fossils--Illustration from Cromarty Fishing + Phenomena--Singular Remains of Holoptychius--Ramble with Mr. Robert + Dick--Color of the Planet Mars--Tombs never dreamed of by + Hervey--Skeleton of the Bruce--Gigantic Holoptychius--"Coal money + Currency"--Upper Boundary of Lower Old Red--Every one may add to + the Store of Geological Facts--Discoveries of Messrs. Dick and + Peach. 192 + + +CHAPTER XII. + + Ichthyolite Beds of Clune and Lethenbarn--Limestone + Quarry--Destruction of Urns and Sarcophagi in the + Lime-kiln--Nodules opened--Beautiful coloring of the + Remains--Patrick Duff's Description--New Genus of Morayshire + Ichthyolite described--Form and size of the Nodules or Stone + Coffins--Illustration from Mrs. Marshall's Cements--Forest of + Darnaway--The Hill of Berries--Sluie--Elgin--Outliers of the Weald + and the Oolite--Description of the Weald at Linksfield--Mr. Duff's + _Lepidotus minor_--Eccentric Types of Fish Scales--Visit to the + Sandstones of Scat-Craig--Fine suit of Fossils at Scat-Craig--True + graveyard Bones, not mere Impressions--Varieties of pattern--The + Diker's "Carved Flowers"--_Stagonolepis_, a new Genus--Termination + of the Ramble. 212 + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +SUPPLEMENTARY. + + Supplementary--Isolated Reptile Remains in Eigg--Small Isles + revisited--The Betsey again--Storm bound--Tacking--Becalmed--Medusae + caught and described--Rain--A Shoal of Porpoises--Change of + Weather--The bed-ridden Woman--The Poor Law Act for + Scotland--Geological Excursion--Basaltic Columns--Oolitic + Beds--Abundance of Organic Remains--Hybodus Teeth--Discovery of + reptile Remains _in situ_--Musical Sand of Laig + re-examined--Explanation suggested--Sail for Isle Ornsay--Anchored + Clouds--A Leak sprung--Peril of the Betsey--At work with Pump and + Pails--Safe in Harbor--Return to Edinburgh. 233 + + +PART II. + +RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST. + + +CHAPTER I. + + Embarkation--A foundered Vessel--Lateness of the Harvest dependent + on the Geological character of the Soil--A Granite Harvest and an + Old Red Harvest--Cottages of Redstone and of Granite--Arable Soil + of Scotland the result of a Geological Grinding Agency--Locality of + the Famine of 1846--Mr. Longmuir's Fossils--Geology necessary to a + Theologian--Popularizers of Science when dangerous--"Constitution + of Man," and "Vestiges of Creation"--Atop of the Banff Coach--A + Geologist's Field Equipment--The trespassing "Stirk"--Silurian + Schists inlaid with Old Red--Bay of Gamrie, how + formed--Gardenstone--Geological Free-masonry illustrated--How to + break an Ichthyolite Nodule--An old Rhyme mended--A raised + Beach--Fossil Shells--Scotland under Water at the time of the + Boulder-clays. 255 + + +CHAPTER II. + + Character of the Rocks near Gardenstone--A Defunct Father-lasher--A + Geological Inference--Village of Gardenstone--The drunken + Scot--Gardenstone Inn--Lord Gardenstone--A Tempest threatened--The + Author's Ghost Story--The Lady in Green--Her Appearance and + Tricks--The Rescued Children--The murdered Peddler and his + Pack--Where the Green Dress came from--Village of Macduff--Peculiar + Appearance of the Beach at the Mouth of the Deveron--Dr. Emslie's + Fossils--_Pterichthys quadratus_--Argillaceous Deposits of + Blackpots--Pipe-laying in Scotland--Fossils of Blackpots Clay--Mr. + Longmuir's Description of them--Blackpots Deposit a Re-formation of + a Liasic Patch--Period of its Formation. 270 + + +CHAPTER III. + + From Blackpots to Portsoy--Character of the Coast--Burn of + Boyne--Fever Phantoms--Graphic Granite--Maupertuis and the Runic + Inscription--Explanation of the _quo modo_ of Graphic + Granite--Portsoy Inn--Serpentine Beds--Portsoy Serpentine + unrivalled for small ornaments--Description of it--Significance of + the term _serpentine_--Elizabeth Bond and her "Letters"--From + Portsoy to Cullen--Attritive Power of the Ocean illustrated--The + Equinoctial--From Cullen to Fochabers--The Old Red again--The old + Pensioner--Fochabers--Mr. Joss, the learned Mail-guard--The Editor + a sort of Coach-guard--On the Coach to Elgin--Geology of + Banffshire--Irregular paging of the Geologic Leaves--Geologic Map + of the County like Joseph's Coat--Striking Illustration. 291 + + +CHAPTER IV. + + Yellow-hued Houses of Elgin--Geology of the Country indicated by + the coloring of the Stone Houses--Fossils of Old Red north of the + Grampians different from those of Old Red south--Geologic + Formations at Linksfield difficult to be understood--Ganoid Scales + of the Wealden--Sudden Reaction, from complex to simple, in the + Scales of Fishes--Pore-covered Scales--Extraordinary amount of + Design exhibited in Ancient Ganoid Scales--Holoptychius Scale + illustrated by Cromwell's "fluted pot"--Patrick Duff's Geological + Collection--Elgin Museum--Fishes of the Ganges--Armature of Ancient + Fishes--Compensatory Defences--- The Hermit-crab--Spines of the + Pimelodi--Ride to Campbelton--Theories of the formation of + Ardersier and Fortrose Promontories--Tradition of their + construction by the Wizard, Michael Scott--A Region of Legendary + Lore. 307 + + +CHAPTER V. + + Rosemarkie and its Scaurs--Kaes' Craig--A Jackdaw + Settlement--"Rosemarkie Kaes" and "Cromarty Cooties"--"The Danes," + a Group of Excavations--At Home in Cromarty--The Boulder-clay of + Cromarty "begins to tell its story"--One of its marked Scenic + Peculiarities--Hints to Landscape Painters--"Samuel's Well"--A + Chain of Bogs geologically accounted for--Another Scenic + Peculiarity--"_Ha-has_ of Nature's digging"--The Author's earliest + Field of Hard Labor--Picturesque Cliff of Boulder-clay--Scratchings + on the Sandstone--Invariable Characteristic of true + Boulder-clay--Scratchings on Pebbles in the line of the longer + axis--Illustration from the Boulder-clay of Banff. 324 + + +CHAPTER VI. + + Organisms of the Boulder-clay not unequivocal--First Impressions of + the Boulder-clay--Difficulty of accounting for its barrenness of + Remains--Sir Charles Lyell's reasoning--A Fact to the + contrary--Human Skull dug from a Clay-bank--The Author's Change of + Belief respecting Organic Remains of the Boulder-clay--Shells from + the Clay at Wick--Questions respecting them settled--Conclusions + confirmed by Mr. Dick's Discoveries at Thurso--Sir John Sinclair's + Discovery of Boulder-clay Shells in 1802--Comminution of the Shells + illustrated--_Cyprina islandica_--Its Preservation in larger + Proportions than those of other Shells accounted for--Boulder-clays + of Scotland reformed during the existing Geological Epoch--Scotland + in the Period of the Boulder-clay "merely three detached groups of + Islands"--Evidence of the Subsidence of the Land in + Scotland--Confirmed by Rev. Mr. Cumming's conclusion--High-lying + Granite Boulders--Marks of a succeeding elevatory + Period--Scandinavia now rising--Autobiography of a Boulder + desirable--A Story of the Supernatural. 336 + + +CHAPTER VII. + + Relation of the deep red stone of Cromarty to the Ichthyolite Beds + of the System--Ruins of a Fossil-charged Bed--Journey to Avoch--Red + Dye of the Boulder-clay distinct from the substance + itself--Variation of Coloring in the Boulder-clay Red Sandstone + accounted for--Hard-pan how formed--A reformed Garden--An ancient + Battle-field--Antiquity of Geologic and Human History + compared--Burn of Killein--Observation made in boyhood + confirmed--Fossil-nodules--Fine Specimen of _Coccosteus + decipiens_--Blank strata of Old Red--New View respecting the Rocks + of Black Isle--A Trip up Moray and Dingwall Friths--Altered color + of the Boulder-clay--Up the Auldgrande River--Scenery of the great + Conglomerate--Graphic Description--Laidlaw's Boulder--_Vaccinium + myrtillus_--Profusion of Travelled Boulders--The Boulder _Clach + Malloch_--Its zones of Animal and Vegetable life. 355 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + Imaginary Autobiography of the _Clach Malloch_ Boulder--Its + Creation--Its Long Night of unsummed Centuries--Laid open to light + on a desert Island--Surrounded by an Arctic Vegetation--Undermined + by the rising Sea--Locked up and floated off on an Ice-field--At + rest on the Sea-bottom--Another Night of unsummed Years--The + Boulder raised again above the waves by the rising of the + Land--Beholds an Altered Country--Pine Forests and Mammals--Another + Period of Ages passes--The Boulder again floated off by an + Iceberg--Finally at rest on the Shore of Cromarty Bay--Time and + Occasion of naming it--Strange Phenomena accounted for by + Earthquakes--How the Boulder of Petty Bay was moved--The Boulder of + Auldgrande--The old Highland Paupers--The little Parsi Girl--Her + Letter to her Papa--But one Human Nature on Earth--Journey + resumed--Conon Burying Ground--An aged Couple--Gossip. 375 + + +CHAPTER IX. + + The Great Conglomerate--Its Undulatory and Rectilinear + Members--Knock Farril and its Vitrified Fort--The old Highlanders + an observant race--The Vein of Silver--Summit of Knock Farril--Mode + of accounting for the Luxuriance of Herbage in the ancient Scottish + Fortalices--The green Graves of Culloden--Theories respecting the + Vitrification of the Hill-forts--Combined Theories of Williams and + Mackenzie probably give the correct account--The Author's + Explanation--Transformations of Fused Rocks--Strathpetlier--The + Spa--Permanent Odoriferous Qualities of an ancient Sea-bottom + converted into Rock--Mineral Springs of the Spa--Infusion of the + powdered rock a substitute--Belemnite Water--The lively young + Lady's Comments--A befogged Country seen from a + hill-top--Ben-Wevis--Journey to Evanton--A Geologist's + Night-mare--The Route Home--Ruins of Craig house--Incompatibility + of Tea and Ghosts--End of the Tour. 393 + + +CHAPTER X. + + Recovered Health--Journey to the Orkneys--Aboard the Steamer at + Wick--Mr. Bremner--Masonry of the Harbor of Wick--The greatest + Blunders result from good Rules misapplied--Mr. Bremner's Theory + about sea-washed Masonry--Singular Fracture of the Rock near + Wick--The Author's mode of accounting for it--"Simple but not + obvious" Thinking--Mr. Bremner's mode of making stone Erections + under Water--His exploits in raising foundered Vessels--Aspect of + the Orkneys--The ungracious Schoolmaster--In the Frith of + Kirkwall--Cathedral of St Magnus--Appearance of Kirkwall--Its + "perished suppers"--Its ancient Palaces--Blunder of the Scotch + Aristocracy--The patronate Wedge--Breaking Ground in Orkney--Minute + Gregarious Coccosteus--True Position of the Coccosteus' Eyes--Ruins + of one of Cromwell's Forts--Antiquities of Orkney--The + Cathedral--Its Sculptures--The Mysterious Cell--Prospect from the + Tower--Its Chimes--Ruins of Castle Patrick. 414 + + +CHAPTER XI. + + The Bishop's Palace at Orkney--Haco the Norwegian--Icelandic + Chronicle respecting his Expedition to Scotland--His Death--Removal + of his Remain to Norway--Why Norwegian Invasion + ceased--Straw-plaiting--The Lassies of Orkney--Orkney Type of + Countenance--Celtic and Scandinavian--An accomplished + Antiquary--Old Manuscripts--An old Tune book--Manuscript Letter of + Mary Queen of Scots--Letters of General Monck--The fearless + Covenanter--Cave of the Rebels--Why the tragedy of "Gustavus Vasa" + was prohibited--Quarry of Pickoquoy--Its Fossil Shells--Journey to + Stromness--Scenery--Birth-place of Malcolm, the Poet--His + History--One of his Poems--His Brother a Free Church Minister--New + Scenery. 437 + + +CHAPTER XII. + + Hills of Orkney--Their Geologic Composition--Scene of Scott's + "Pirate"--Stromness--Geology of the District--"Seeking + beasts"--Conglomerate in contact with Granite--A palaeozoic Hudson's + Bay--Thickness of Conglomerate of Orkney--Oldest Vertebrate yet + discovered in Orkney--Its Size--Figure of a characteristic plate of + the Asterolepis--Peculiarity of Old Red Fishes--Length of the + Asterolepis--A rich Ichthyolite Bed--Arrangement of the + Layers--Queries as to the Cause of it--Minerals--An abandoned + Mine--A lost Vessel--Kelp for Iodine--A dangerous Coast--Incidents + of Shipwreck--Hospitality--Stromness Museum--Diplopterus mistaken + for Dipterus--Their Resemblances and Differences--Visit to a + remarkable Stack--Paring the Soil for Fuel, and consequent + Barrenness--Description of the Stack--Wave-formed Caves--Height to + which the Surf rises. 457 + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + Detached Fossils--Remains of the Pterichthys--Terminal Bones of the + Coccosteus, etc., preserved--Internal Skeleton of Coccosteus--The + shipwrecked Sailor in the Cave--Bishop Grahame--His Character, as + drawn by Baillie--His Successor--Ruins of the Bishop's + Country-house--Sub-aerial Formation of Sandstone--Formation near + New Kaye--Inference from such Formation--Tour resumed--Loch of + Stennis--Waters of the Loch fresh, brackish, and salt--Vegetation + varied accordingly--Change produced in the Flounder by fresh + water--The Standing Stones, second only to Stonehenge--Their + Purpose--Their Appearance and Situation--Diameter of the + Circle--What the Antiquaries say of it--Reference to it in the + "Pirate"--Dr. Hibbert's Account. 476 + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + On Horseback--A pared Moor--Small Landholders--Absorption of small + holdings in England and Scotland--Division of Land favorable to + Civil and Religious Rights--Favorable to social Elevation--An + inland Parish--The Landsman and Lobster--Wild Flowers of + Orkney--Law of Compensation illustrated by the Tobacco + Plant--Poverty tends to Productiveness--Illustrated in + Ireland--Profusion of Ichthyolites--Orkney a land of Defunct + Fishes--Sandwick--A Collection of Coccostean Flags--A Quarry full + of Heads of Dipteri--The Bergil, or Striped Wrasse--Its Resemblance + to the Dipterus--Poverty of the Flora of the Lower Old Red--No true + Coniferous Wood in the Orkney Flagstones--Departure for Hoy--The + intelligent Boatman--Story of the Orkney Fisherman. 492 + + +CHAPTER XV. + + Hoy--Unique Scenery--The Dwarfie Stone of Hoy--Sir Walter Scott's + Account of it--Its Associations--Inscription of Names--George + Buchanan's Consolation--The mythic Carbuncle of the Hill of Hoy--No + Fossils at Hoy--Striking Profile of Sir Walter Scott on the Hill of + Hoy--Sir Walter, and Shetland and Orkney--Originals of two + Characters in "The Pirate"--Bessie Millie--Garden of Gow, the + "Pirate"--Childhood's Scene of Byron's "Torquil"--The Author's + Introduction to his Sister--A German Visitor--German and Scotch + Sabbath-keeping habits contrasted--Mr. Watt's Specimens of Fossil + Remains--The only new Organism found in Orkney--Back to + Kirkwall--to Wick--Vedder's Ode to Orkney. 507 + + + + +THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + Preparation--Departure--Recent and Ancient Monstrosities--A Free + Church Yacht--Down the Clyde--Jura--Prof. Walker's + Experiment--Whirlpool near Scarba--Geological Character of the + Western Highlands--An Illustration--Different Ages of Outer and + Inner Hebrides--Mt. Blanc and the Himalayas "mere + upstarts"--Esdaile Quarries--Oban--A Section through Conglomerate + and Slate examined--M'Dougal's Dog-stone--Power of the Ocean to + move Rocks--Sound of Mull--The Betsey--The Minister's + Cabin--Village of Tobermory--The "Florida," a Wreck of the + Invincible Armada--Geologic Exploration and Discovery--At Anchor. + + +The pleasant month of July had again come round, and for full five weeks +I was free. Chisels and hammers, and the bag for specimens, were taken +from their corner in the dark closet, and packed up with half a stone +weight of a fine _soft_ Conservative Edinburgh newspaper, valuable for a +quality of preserving old things entire. At noon on St. Swithin's day +(Monday the 15th), I was speeding down the Clyde in the Toward Castle +steamer, for Tobermory in Mull. In the previous season I had intended +passing direct from the Oolitic deposits of the eastern coast of +Scotland, to the Oolitic deposits of the Hebrides. But the weeks glided +all too quickly away among the ichthyolites of Caithness and Cromarty, +and the shells and lignites of Sutherland and Ross. My friend, too, the +Rev. Mr. Swanson, of Small Isles, on whose assistance I had reckoned, +was in the middle of his troubles at the time, with no longer a home in +his parish, and not yet provided with one elsewhere; and I concluded he +would have but little heart, at such a season, for breaking into rocks, +or for passing from the too pressing monstrosities of an existing state +of things, to the old lapidified monstrosities of the past. And so my +design on the Hebrides had to be postponed for a twelvemonth. But my +friend, now afloat in his Free Church yacht, had got a home on the sea +beside his island charge, which, if not very secure when nights were +dark and winds loud, and the little vessel tilted high to the long roll +of the Atlantic, lay at least beyond the reach of man's intolerance, and +not beyond the protecting care of the Almighty. He had written me that +he would run down his vessel from Small Isles to meet me at Tobermory, +and in consequence of the arrangement I was now on my way to Mull. + +St. Swithin's day, so important in the calendar of our humbler +meteorologists, had in this part of the country its alternate fits of +sunshine and shower. We passed gaily along the green banks of the Clyde, +with their rich flat fields glittering in moisture, and their lines of +stately trees, that, as the light flashed out, threw their shadows over +the grass. The river expanded into the estuary, the estuary into the +open sea; we left behind us beacon, and obelisk, and rock-perched +castle;-- + + "Merrily down we drop + Below the church, below the tower, + Below the light house top," + +and, as the evening fell, we were ploughing the outer reaches of the +Frith, with the ridgy table-land of Ayrshire stretching away, green, on +the one side, and the serrated peaks of Arran rising dark and high on +the other. At sunrise next morning our boat lay, unloading a portion of +her cargo, in one of the ports of Islay, and we could see the Irish +coast resting on the horizon to the south and west, like a long +undulating bank of thin blue cloud; with the island of Rachrin--famous +for the asylum it had afforded the Bruce when there was no home for him +in Scotland,--presenting in front its mass of darker azure. On and away! +We swept past Islay, with its low fertile hills of mica-schist and +slate; and Jura, with its flat dreary moors, and its far-seen gigantic +paps, on one of which, in the last age, Professor Walker, of Edinburgh, +set water a-boil with six degrees of heat less than he found necessary +for the purpose on the plain below. The Professor describes the view +from the summit, which includes in its wide circle at once the Isle of +Skye and the Isle of Man, as singularly noble and imposing; two such +prospects more, he says, would bring under the eye the whole island of +Great Britain, from the Pentland Frith to the English Channel. We sped +past Jura. Then came the Gulf of Coryvrekin, with the bare mountain +island of Scarba overlooking the fierce, far-famed whirlpool, that we +could see from the deck, breaking in long lines of foam, and sending out +its waves in wide rings on every side, when not a speck of white was +visible elsewhere in the expanse of sea around us. And then came an +opener space, studded with smaller islands,--mere hill-tops rising out +of the sea, with here and there insulated groups of pointed rocks, the +skeletons of perished hills, amid which the tide chafed and fretted, as +if laboring to complete on the broken remains their work of denudation +and ruin. + +The disposition of land and water on this coast suggests the idea that +the Western Highlands, from the line in the interior, whence the rivers +descend to the Atlantic, with the islands beyond to the outer Hebrides, +are all parts of one great mountainous plane, inclined slantways into +the sea. First, the long withdrawing valleys of the main land, with +their brown mossy streams, change their character as they dip beneath +the sea-level, and become salt-water lochs. The lines of hills that rise +over them jut out as promontories, till cut off by some transverse +valley, lowered still more deeply into the brine, and that exists as a +kyle, minch, or sound, swept twice every tide by powerful currents. The +sea deepens as the plain slopes downward; mountain-chains stand up out +of the water as larger islands, single mountains as smaller ones, lower +eminences as mere groups of pointed rocks; till at length, as we pass +outwards, all trace of the submerged land disappears, and the wide ocean +stretches out and away its unfathomable depths. The model of some Alpine +country raised in plaster on a flat board, and tilted slantways, at a +low angle, into a basin of water, would exhibit, on a minute scale, an +appearance exactly similar to that presented by the western coast of +Scotland and the Hebrides. The water would rise along the hollows, +longitudinal and transverse, forming sounds and lochs, and surround, +island-like, the more deeply submerged eminences. But an examination of +the geology of the coast, with its promontories and islands, +communicates a different idea. These islands and promontories prove to +be of very various ages and origin. The _outer_ Hebrides may have +existed as the inner skeleton of some ancient country, contemporary with +the main land, and that bore on its upper soils the productions of +perished creations, at a time when by much the larger portion of the +_inner_ Hebrides,--Skye, and Mull, and the Small Isles,--existed as part +of the bottom of a wide sound, inhabited by the Cephalopoda and +Enaliosaurians of the Lias and the Oolite. Judging from its components, +the Long Island, like the Lammermoors and the Grampians, may have been +smiling to the sun when the Alps and the Himalaya Mountains lay buried +in the abyss; whereas the greater part of Skye and Mull must have been, +like these vast mountain-chains of the Continent, an oozy sea-floor, +over which the ligneous productions of the neighboring lands, washed +down by the streams, grew heavy and sank, and on which the belemnite +dropped its spindle and the ammonite its shell. The idea imparted of +_old_ Scotland to the geologist here,--of Scotland, proudly, +aristocratically, supereminently old,--for it can call Mont Blanc a mere +upstart, and Dhawalageri, with its twenty-eight thousand feet of +elevation, a heady fellow of yesterday,--is not that of a land settling +down by the head, like a foundering vessel, but of a land whose hills +and islands, like its great aristocratic families, have arisen from the +level in very various ages, and under the operation of circumstances +essentially diverse. + +We left behind us the islands of Lunga, Luing, and Seil, and entered the +narrow Sound of Kerrera, with its border of Old Red conglomerate resting +on the clay-slate of the district. We had passed Esdaile near enough to +see the workmen employed in the quarries of the island, so extensively +known in commerce for their roofing slate, and several small vessels +beside them, engaged in loading; and now we had got a step higher in the +geological scale, and could mark from the deck the peculiar character of +the conglomerate, which, in cliffs washed by the sea, when the binding +matrix is softer than the pebbles which it encloses, roughens, instead +of being polished, by the action of the waves, and which, along the +eastern side of the Sound here, seems as if formed of cannon-shot, of +all sizes, embedded in cement. The Sound terminates in the beautiful bay +of Oban, so quiet and sheltered, with its two island breakwaters in +front,--its semi-circular sweep of hill behind,--its long white-walled +village, bent like a bow, to conform to the inflection of the +shore,--its mural precipices behind, tapestried with ivy,--its rich +patches of green pasture,--its bosky dingles of shrub and tree,--and, +perched on the seaward promontory, its old, time-eaten keep. "In one +part of the harbor of Oban," says Dr. James Anderson, in his "Practical +Treatise on Peat Moss," (1794), "where the depth of the sea is about +twenty fathoms, the bottom is found to consist of quick peat, which +affords no safe anchorage." I made inquiry at the captain of the +steamer, regarding this submerged deposit, but he had never heard of it. +There are, however, many such on the coasts of both Britain and Ireland. +We staid at Oban for several hours, waiting the arrival of the Fort +William steamer; and, taking out hammer and chisel from my bag, I +stepped ashore to question my ancient acquaintance, the Old Red +conglomerate, and was fortunate enough to meet on the pier-head, as I +landed, one of the best of companions for assisting in such work, Mr. +Colin Elder, of Isle Ornsay,--the gentleman who had so kindly furnished +my friend Mr. Swanson with an asylum for his family, when there was no +longer a home for them in Small Isles. "You are much in luck," he said, +after our first greeting: "one of the villagers, in improving his +garden, has just made a cut for some fifteen or twenty yards along the +face of the precipice behind the village, and laid open the line of +junction between the conglomerate and the clay-slate. Let us go and see +it." + +I found several things worthy of notice in the chance section to which I +was thus introduced. The conglomerate lies uncomfortably along the edges +of the slate strata, which present under it an appearance exactly +similar to that which they exhibit under the rolled stones and shingle +of the neighboring shore, where we find them laid bare beside the +harbor, for several hundred yards. And, mixed with the pebbles of +various character and origin of which the conglomerate is mainly +composed, we see detached masses of the slate, that still exhibit on +their edges the identical lines of fracture characteristic of the rock, +which they received, when torn from the mass below, myriads of ages +before. In the incalculably remote period in which the conglomerate base +of the Old Red Sandstone was formed, the clay-slate of this district had +been exactly the same sort of rock that it is now. Some long anterior +convulsion had upturned its strata, and the sweep of water, mingled with +broken fragments of stone, had worn smooth the exposed edges, just as a +similar agency wears the edges exposed at the present time. Quarries +might have been opened in this rock, as now, for a roofing-slate, had +there been quarriers to open them, or houses to roof over; it was in +every respect as ancient a looking stone then as in the present late age +of the world. There are no sermons that seem stranger or more impressive +to one who has acquired just a little of the language in which they are +preached, than those which, according to the poet, are to be found in +stones; a bit of fractured slate, embedded among a mass of rounded +pebbles, proves voluble with ideas of a kind almost too large for the +mind of man to grasp. The eternity that hath passed is an ocean without +a further shore, and a finite conception may in vain attempt to span it +over. But from the beach, strewed with wrecks, on which we stand to +contemplate it, we see far out towards the cloudy horizon, many a dim +islet and many a pinnacled rock, the sepulchres of successive eras,--the +monuments of consecutive creations: the entire prospect is studded over +with these landmarks of a hoar antiquity, which, measuring out space +from space, constitute the vast whole a province of time; nor can the +eye reach to the open, shoreless infinitude beyond, in which only God +existed; and, as in a sea-scene in nature, in which headland stretches +dim and blue beyond headland, and islet beyond islet, the distance seems +not lessened, but increased, by the crowded objects--we borrow a +larger, not a smaller idea of the distant eternity, from the vastness of +the measured periods that occur between. + +Over the lower bed of conglomerate, which here, as on the east coast, is +of great thickness, we find a bed of gray stratified clay, containing a +few calcareo-argillaceous nodules. The conglomerate cliffs to the north +of the village present appearances highly interesting to the geologist. +Rising in a long wall within the pleasure-grounds of Dunolly castle, we +find them wooded atop and at the base; while immediately at their feet +there stretches out a grassy lawn, traversed by the road from the +village to the castle, which sinks with a gradual slope into the +existing sea-beach, but which ages ago must have been a sea-beach +itself. We see the bases of the precipices hollowed and worn, with all +their rents and crevices widened into caves; and mark, at a picturesque +angle of the rock, what must have been once an insulated sea-stack, some +thirty or forty feet in height, standing up from amid the rank grass, as +at one time it stood up from amid the waves. Tufts of fern and sprays of +ivy bristle from its sides, once roughened by the serrated kelp-weed and +the tangle. The Highlanders call it M'Dougal's Dog-stone, and say that +the old chieftains of Lorne made use of it as a post to which to fasten +their dogs,--animals wild and gigantic as themselves,--when the hunters +were gathering to rendezvous, and the impatient beagles struggled to +break away and begin the chase on their own behalf. It owes its +existence as a stack--for the precipice in which it was once included +has receded from around it for yards--to an immense boulder in its +base--by far the largest stone I ever saw in an Old Red conglomerate. +The mass is of a rudely rhomboidal form, and measures nearly twelve feet +in the line of its largest diagonal. A second huge pebble in the same +detached spire measures four feet by about three. Both have their edges +much rounded, as if, ere their deposition in the conglomerate, they had +been long exposed to the wear of the sea; and both are composed of an +earthy amygdaloidal trap. I have stated elsewhere ["Old Red Sandstone," +Chapter XII.], that I had scarce ever seen a stone in the Old Red +conglomerate which I could not raise from the ground; and ere I said so +I had examined no inconsiderable extent of this deposit, chiefly, +however, along the eastern coast of Scotland, where its larger pebbles +rarely exceed two hundred weight. How account for the occurrence of +pebbles of so gigantic a size here? We can but guess at a solution, and +that very vaguely. The islands of Mull and Kerrera form, in the present +state of things, inner and outer breakwaters between what is now the +coast of Oban and the waves of the Atlantic; but Mull, in the times of +even the Oolite, must have existed as a mere sea-bottom; and Kerrera, +composed mainly of trap, which has brought with it to the surface +patches of the conglomerate, must, when the conglomerate was in forming, +have been a mere sea-bottom also. Is it not possible, that when the +breakwaters _were not_, the Atlantic _was_, and that its tempests, which +in the present time can transport vast rocks for hundreds of yards along +the exposed coasts of Shetland and Orkney, may have been the agent here +in the transport of these huge pebbles of the Old Red conglomerate? +"Rocks that two or three men could not lift," say the Messrs. Anderson +of Inverness, in describing the storms of Orkney, "are washed about even +on the tops of cliffs, which are between sixty and a hundred feet above +the surface of the sea, when smooth; and detached masses of rock, of an +enormous size, are well known to have been carried a considerable +distance between low and high-water mark." "A little way from the +Brough," says Dr. Patrick Neill, in his 'Tour through Orkney and +Shetland,' "we saw the prodigious effects of a late winter storm: many +great stones, one of them of several tons weight, had been tossed up a +precipice twenty or thirty feet high, and laid fairly on the green +sward." There is something farther worthy of notice in the stone of +which the two boulders of the Dog-stack are composed. No species of rock +occurs more abundantly in the embedded pebbles of this ancient +conglomerate than rocks of the trap family. We find in it +trap-porphyries, greenstones, clinkstones, basalts, and amygdalolds, +largely mingled with fragments of the granitic, clay-slate, and quartz +rocks. The Plutonic agencies must have been active in the locality for +periods amazingly protracted; and many of the masses protruded at a very +early time seem identical in their composition with rocks of the trap +family, which in other parts of the country we find referred to much +later eras. There occur in this deposit rolled pebbles of a basalt, +which in the neighborhood of Edinburgh would be deemed considerably more +modern than the times of the Mountain Limestone, and in the Isle of +Skye, considerably more modern than the times of the Oolite. + +The sunlight was showering its last slant rays on island and loch, and +then retreating upwards along the higher hills, chased by the shadows, +as our boat quitted the bay of Oban, and stretched northwards, along the +end of green Lismore, for the Sound of Mull. We had just enough of day +left, as we reached mid sea, to show us the gray fronts of the three +ancient castles,--- which at this point may be at once seen from the +deck,--Dunolly, Duart, and Dunstaffnage; and enough left us as we +entered the Sound, to show, and barely show, the Lady Rock, famous in +tradition, and made classic by the pen of Campbell, raising its black +back amid the tides, like a belated porpoise. And then twilight +deepened into night, and we went snorting through the Strait with a +stream of green light curling off from either bow in the calm, towards +the high dim land, that seemed standing up on both sides like tall +hedges over a green lane. We entered the Bay of Tobermory about +midnight, and cast anchor amid a group of little vessels. An exceedingly +small boat shot out from the side of a yacht of rather diminutive +proportions, but tautly rigged for her size, and bearing an outrigger +astern. The water this evening was full of phosphoric matter, and it +gleamed and sparkled around the little boat like a northern aurora +around a dark cloudlet. There was just light enough to show that the +oars were plied by a sailor-like man in a Guernsey frock, and that +another sailor-like man,--the skipper, mayhap,--attired in a cap and +pea-jacket, stood in the stern. The man in the Guernsey frock was John +Stewart, sole mate and half the crew of the Free Church yacht Betsey; +and the skipper-like man in the pea-jacket was my friend the minister of +the Protestants of Small Isles. In five minutes more I was sitting with +Mr. Elder beside the little iron stove in the cabin of the Betsey; and +the minister, divested of his cap and jacket, but still looking the +veritable skipper to admiration, was busied in making us a rather late +tea. + +The cabin,--my home for the greater part of the three following weeks, +and that of my friend for the greater part of the previous +twelvemonth,--I found to be an apartment about twice the size of a +common bed, and just lofty enough under the beams to permit a man of +five feet eleven to stand erect in his night-cap. A large table, lashed +to the floor, furnished with tiers of drawers of all sorts and sizes, +and bearing a writing desk bound to it a-top, occupied the middle space, +leaving just room enough for a person to pass between its edges and the +narrow coffin-like beds in the sides, and space enough at its fore-end +for two seats in front of the stove. A jealously barred skylight opened +above; and there depended from it this evening a close lantern-looking +lamp, sufficiently valuable, no doubt, in foul weather, but dreary and +dim on the occasions when all one really wished from it was light. The +peculiar furniture of the place gave evidence to the mixed nature of my +friend's employment. A well-thumbed chart of the Western Islands lay +across an equally well-thumbed volume of Henry's "Commentary." There was +a Polyglot and a spy-glass in one corner, and a copy of Calvin's +"Institutes," with the latest edition of "The Coaster's Sailing +Directions," in another; while in an adjoining state-room, nearly large +enough to accommodate an arm-chair, if the chair could have but +contrived to get into it, I caught a glimpse of my friend's printing +press and his case of types, canopied overhead by the blue ancient of +the vessel, bearing, in stately six-inch letters of white bunting, the +legend, "FREE CHURCH YACHT." A door opened, which communicated with the +forecastle, and John Stewart, stooping very much, to accommodate himself +to the low-roofed passage, thrust in a plate of fresh herrings, +splendidly toasted, to give substantiality and relish to our tea. The +little rude forecastle, a considerably smaller apartment than the cabin, +was all a-glow with the bright fire in the coppers, itself invisible; we +could see the chain-cable dangling from the hatchway to the floor, and +John Stewart's companion, a powerful-looking, handsome young man, with +broad bare breast, and in his shirt-sleeves, squatted full in front of +the blaze, like the household goblin described by Milton, or the +"Christmas Present" of Dickens. Mr. Elder left us for the steamer, in +which he prosecuted his voyage next morning to Skye; and we tumbled in, +each to his narrow bed,--comfortable enough sort of resting places, +though not over soft; and slept so soundly, that we failed to mark Mr. +Elder's return for a few seconds, a little after daybreak. I found at my +bedside, when I awoke, a fragment of rock which he had brought from the +shore, charged with Liasic fossils; and a note he had written, to say +that the deposit to which it belonged occurred in the trap immediately +above the village-mill; and further, to call my attention to a house +near the middle of the village, built of a mouldering red sandstone, +which had been found _in situ_ in digging the foundations. I had but +little time for the work of exploration in Mull, and the information +thus kindly rendered enabled me to economize it. + +The village of Tobermory resembles that of Oban. A quiet bay has its +secure island-breakwater in front; a line of tall, well-built houses, +not in the least rural in their aspect, but that seem rather as if they +had been transported from the centre of some stately city entire and at +once, sweeps round its inner inflection, like a bent bow; and an +amphitheatre of mingled rock and wood rises behind. With all its beauty, +however, there hangs about the village an air of melancholy. Like some +of the other western coast villages, it seems not to have grown, +piece-meal, as a village ought, but to have been made wholesale, as +Frankenstein made his man; and to be ever asking, and never more +incessantly than when it is at its quietest, why it should have been +made at all? The remains of the Florida, a gallant Spanish ship, lie off +its shores, a wreck of the Invincible Armada, "deep whelmed," according +to Thompson, + + "What time, + Snatched sudden by the vengeful blast, + The scattered vessels drove, and on blind shelve, + And pointed rock that marks th' indented shore, + Relentless dashed, where loud the northern main + Howls through the fractured Caledonian isles." + +Macculloch relates, that there was an attempt made, rather more than a +century ago, to weigh up the Florida, which ended in the weighing up of +merely a few of her guns, some of them of iron greatly corroded; and +that, on scraping them, they became so hot under the hand that they +could not be touched, but that they lost this curious property after a +few hours' exposure to the air. There have since been repeated instances +elsewhere, he adds, of the same phenomenon, and chemistry has lent its +solution of the principles on which it occurs; but, in the year 1740, +ere the riddle was read, it must have been deemed a thoroughly magical +one by the simple islanders of Mull. It would seem as if the guns, +heated in the contest with Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, had again +kindled, under some supernatural influence, with the intense glow of the +lost battle. + +The morning was showery; but it cleared up a little after ten, and we +landed to explore. We found the mill a little to the south of the +village, where a small stream descends, all foam and uproar, from the +higher grounds along a rocky channel half-hidden by brushwood; and the +Liasic bed occurs in an exposed front directly over it, coped by a thick +bed of amygdaloidal trap. The organisms are numerous; and, when we dig +into the bank beyond the reach of the weathering influences, we find +them delicately preserved, though after a fashion that renders difficult +their safe removal. Originally the bed must have existed as a brown +argillaceous mud, somewhat resembling that which forms in the course of +years, under a scalp of muscles; and it has hardened into a more +silt-like clay, in which the fossils occur, not as petrifactions, but +as shells in a state of decay, except in some rare cases, in which a +calcareous nodule has formed within or around them. Viewed in the group, +they seem of an intermediate character, between the shells of the Lias +and the Oolite. One of the first fossils I disinterred was the Gryphaea +obliquata,--a shell characteristic of the Liasic formation; and the +fossil immediately after, the Pholadomy aequalis, a shell of the Oolitic +one. There occurs in great numbers a species of small Pecten,--some of +the specimens scarce larger than a herring scale; a minute Ostrea, a +sulcated Terebratula, an Isocardia, a Pullastra, and groups of broken +serpulae in vast abundance. The deposit has also its three species of +Ammonite, existing as mere impressions in the clay; and at least two +species of Belemnite,--one of the two somewhat resembling the Belemnites +abbreviatus, but smaller and rather more elongated: while the other, of +a spindle form, diminishing at both ends, reminds one of the Belemnites +minimus of the Gault. The Red Sandstone in the centre of the village +occurs detached, like this Liasic bed, amid the prevailing trap, and may +be seen _in situ_ beside the southern gable of the tall, deserted +looking house at the hill-foot, that has been built of it. It is a soft, +coarse-grained, mouldering stone, ill fitted for the purposes of the +architect; and more nearly resembles the New Red Sandstone of England +and Dumfriesshire, than any other rock I have yet seen in the north of +Scotland. I failed to detect in it aught organic. + +We weighed anchor about two o'clock, and beat gallantly out the Sound, +in the face of an intermittent baffling wind and a heavy swell from the +sea. I would fain have approached nearer the precipices of Ardnamurchan, +to trace along their inaccessible fronts the strange reticulations of +trap figured by Macculloch; but prudence and the skipper forbade our +trusting even the docile little Betsey, on one of the most formidable +lee shores in Scotland, in winds so light and variable, and with the +swell so high. We could hear the deep roar of the surf for miles, and +see its undulating strip of white flickering under stack and cliff. The +scenery here seems rich in legendary association. At one tack we bore +into Bloody Bay, on the Mull coast,--the scene of a naval battle between +two island chiefs; at another, we approached, on the mainland, a cave +inaccessible save from the sea, long the haunt of a ruthless Highland +pirate. Ere we rounded the headland of Ardnamurchan, the slant light of +evening was gleaming athwart the green acclivities of Mull, barring them +with long horizontal lines of shadow, where the trap terraces rise step +beyond step, in the characteristic stair-like arrangement to which the +rock owes its name; and the sun set as we were bearing down in one long +tack on the Small Isles. We passed the Isle of Muck, with its one low +hill; saw the pyramidal mountains of Rum looming tall in the offing; and +then, running along the Isle of Eigg, with its colossal Scuir rising +between us and the sky, as if it were a piece of Babylonian wall, or of +the great wall of China, only vastly larger, set down on the ridge of a +mountain, we entered the channel which separates the island from one of +its dependencies, Eilean Chaisteil, and cast anchor in the tideway, +about fifty yards from the rocks. We were now at home,--the only home +which the proprietor of the island permits to the islanders' minister; +and, after getting warm and comfortable over the stove and a cup of tea, +we did what all sensible men do in their own homes when the night wears +late,--got into bed. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + The Minister's Larder--No Harbor--Eigg Shoes--_Tormentilla + erecta_--For the _Witness'_ Sake--Eilean Chaisteil--Appearance of + Eigg--Chapel of St. Donan--Shell-sand--Origin of Secondary + Calcareous Rock suggested--Exploration of Eigg--Pitchstone Veins--A + Bone Cave--Massacre at Eigg--Grouping of Human Bones in the + Cave--Relics--The Horse's Tooth--A Copper Sewing Needle--Teeth + found--Man a worse Animal than his Teeth show him to have been + designed for--Story of the Massacre--Another Version--Scuir of + Eigg--The Scuir a Giant's Causeway--Character of the + Columns--Remains of a Prostrate Forest. + + +We had rich tea this morning. The minister was among his people; and our +first evidence of the fact came in the agreeable form of three bottles +of fine fresh cream from the shore. Then followed an ample baking of +nice oaten cakes. The material out of which the cakes were manufactured +had been sent from the minister's store aboard,--for oatmeal in Eigg is +rather a scarce commodity in the middle of July; but they had borrowed a +crispness and flavor from the island, that the meal, left to its own +resources, could scarcely have communicated; and the golden-colored +cylinder of fresh butter which accompanied them was all the island's +own. There was an ample supply of eggs too, as one not quite a conjuror +might have expected from a country bearing such a name,--eggs with the +milk in them; and, with cream, butter, oaten cakes, eggs, and tea, all +of the best, and with sharp-set sea-air appetites to boot, we fared +sumptuously. There is properly no harbor in the island. We lay in a +narrow channel, through which, twice every twenty-four hours, the tides +sweep powerfully in one direction, and then as powerfully in the +direction opposite; and our anchors had a trick of getting foul, and +canting stock downwards in the loose sand, which, with pointed rocks all +around us, over which the current ran races, seemed a very shrewd sort +of trick indeed. But a kedge and halser, stretched thwartwise to a +neighboring crag, and jammed fast in a crevice, served in moderate +weather to keep us tolerably right. In the severer seasons, however, the +kedge is found inadequate, and the minister has to hoist sail and make +out for the open sea, as if served with a sudden summons of ejectment. + +Among the various things brought aboard this morning, there was a pair +of island shoes for the minister's cabin use, that struck my fancy not a +little. They were all around of a deep madder red color, soles, welts +and uppers; and, though somewhat resembling in form the little yawl of +the Betsey, were sewed not unskilfully with thongs; and their peculiar +style of tie seemed of a kind suited to furnish with new idea a +fashionable shoemaker of the metropolis. They were altogether the +production of Eigg, from the skin out of which they had been cut, with +the lime that had prepared it for the tan, and the root by which the tan +had been furnished, down to the last on which they had been moulded, and +the artisan that had cast them off, a pair of finished shoes. There are +few trees, and, of course, no bark to spare, in the island; but the +islanders find a substitute in the astringent lobiferous root of the +_Tormentilla erecta_, which they dig out for the purpose among the +heath, at no inconsiderable expense of time and trouble. I was informed +by John Stewart, an adept in all the multifarious arts of the island, +from the tanning of leather and the tilling of land, to the building of +a house or the working of a ship, that the infusion of root had to be +thrice changed for every skin, and that it took a man nearly a day to +gather roots enough for a single infusion. I was further informed that +it was not unusual for the owner of a skin to give it to some neighbor +to tan, and that, the process finished, it was divided equally between +them, the time and trouble bestowed on it by the one being deemed +equivalent to the property held in it by the other. I wished to call a +pair of these primitive-looking shoes my own, and no sooner was the wish +expressed, than straightway one islander furnished me with leather, and +another set to work upon the shoes. When I came to speak of +remuneration, however, the islanders shook their heads. "No, no, not +from the _Witness_: there are not many that take our part, and the +_Witness_ does." I hold the shoes, therefore, as my first retainer, +determined, on all occasions of just quarrel, to make common cause with +the poor islanders. + +The view from the anchoring ground presents some very striking features. +Between us and the sea lies Eilean Chaisteil, a rocky trap islet, about +half a mile in length by a few hundred yards in breadth; poor in +pastures, but peculiarly rich in sea-weed, of which John Stewart used, +he informed me, to make finer kelp, ere the trade was put down by act of +Parliament, than could be made elsewhere in Eigg. This islet bore, in +the remote past, its rude fort or dun, long since sunk into a few grassy +mounds; and hence its name. On the landward side rises the island of +Eigg proper, resembling in outline two wedges, placed point to point on +a board. The centre is occupied by a deep angular gap, from which the +ground slopes upward on both sides, till, attaining its extreme height +at the opposite ends of the island, it drops suddenly on the sea. In the +northern rising ground the wedge-like outline is complete; in the +southern one it is somewhat modified by the gigantic Scuir, which rises +direct on the apex of the height, _i.e._, the thick part of the wedge; +and which, seen bows-on from this point of view, resembles some vast +donjon keep, taller, from base to summit, by about a hundred feet, than +the dome of St. Paul's. The upper slopes of the island are brown and +moory, and present little on which the eye may rest, save a few trap +terraces, with rudely columnar fronts; its middle space is mottled with +patches of green, and studded with dingy cottages, each of which this +morning, just a little before the breakfast hour, had its own blue +cloudlet of smoke diffused around it; while along the beach, patches of +level sand, alternated with tracts of green bank, or both, give place to +stately ranges of basaltic columns, or dingy groups of detached rocks. +Immediately in front of the central hollow, as if skilfully introduced, +to relieve the tamest part of the prospect, a noble wall of +semi-circular columns rises some eighty or a hundred feet over the +shore; and on a green slope, directly above, we see the picturesque +ruins of the Chapel of St. Donan, one of the disciples of Columba, and +the Culdee saint and apostle of the island. + +One of the things that first struck me, as I got on deck this morning, +was the extreme whiteness of the sand. I could see it gleaming bright +through the transparent green of the sea, three fathoms below our keel, +and, in a little flat bay directly opposite, it presented almost the +appearance of pulverized chalk. A stronger contrast to the dingy +trap-rocks around which it lies could scarce be produced, had contrast +for effect's sake been the object. On landing on the exposed shelf to +which we had fastened our halser, I found the origin of the sand +interestingly exhibited. The hollows of the rock, a rough trachyte, with +a surface like that of a steel rasp, were filled with handfuls of broken +shells thrown up by the surf from the sea-banks beyond: fragments of +echini, bits of the valves of razor-fish, the island cyprina, mactridae, +buccinidae, and fractured periwinkles, lay heaped together in vast +abundance. In hollow after hollow, as I passed shorewards, I found the +fragments more and more comminuted, just as, in passing along the +successive vats of a paper-mill, one finds the linen rags more and more +disintegrated by the cylinders; and immediately beyond the inner edge of +the shelf, which is of considerable extent, lies the flat bay, the +ultimate recipient of the whole, filled to the depth of several feet, +and to the extent of several hundred yards, with a pure shell-sand, the +greater part of which had been thus washed ashore in handfuls, and +ground down by the blended agency of the trachyte and the surf. Once +formed, however, in this way it began to receive accessions from the +exuviae of animals that love such localities,--the deep arenaceous bed +and soft sand-beach; and these now form no inconsiderable proportion of +the entire mass. I found the deposit thickly inhabited by spatangi, +razor-fish, gapers, and large, well-conditioned cockles, which seemed to +have no idea whatever that they were living amid the debris of a charnel +house. Such has been the origin here of a bed of shell-sand, consisting +of many thousand tons, and of which at least eighty per cent. was once +associated with animal life. And such, I doubt not, is the history of +many a calcareous rock in the later secondary formations. There are +strata, not a few, of the Cretaceous and Oolitic groups, that would be +found--could we but trace their beginnings with a certainty and +clearness equal to that with which we can unravel the story of this +deposit--to be, like it, elaborations from dead matter, made through the +agency of animal secretion. + +We set out on our first exploratory ramble in Eigg an hour before noon. +The day was bracing and breezy, and a clear sun looked cheerily down on +island, and strait, and blue open sea. We rowed southwards in our +little boat, through the channel of Eilean Chaisteil, along the +trap-rocks of the island, and landed under the two pitchstone veins of +Eigg, so generally known among mineralogists, and of which specimens may +be found in so many cabinets. They occur in an earthy, greenish-black +amygdaloid, which forms a range of sea-cliffs varying in height from +thirty to fifty feet, and that, from their sad hue and dull fracture, +seem to absorb the light; while the veins themselves, bright and +glistening, glitter in the sun, as if they were streams of water +traversing the face of the rock. The first impression they imparted, in +viewing them from the boat, was, that the inclosing mass was a pitch +caldron, rather of the roughest and largest, and much begrimmed by soot, +that had cracked to the heat, and that the fluid pitch was forcing its +way outwards through the rents. The veins expand and contract, here +diminishing to a strip a few inches across, there widening into a +comparatively broad belt, some two or three feet over; and, as well +described by M'Culloch, we find the inclosed pitchstone changing in +color, and assuming a lighter or darker hue, as it nears the edge or +recedes from it. In the centre it is of a dull olive green, passing +gradually into blue, which in turn deepens into black; and it is exactly +at the point of contact with the earthy amygdaloid that the black is +most intense, and the fracture of the stone glassiest and brightest. I +was lucky enough to detach a specimen, which, though scarce four inches +across, exhibits the three colors characteristic of the vein,--its bar +of olive green on the one side, of intense black on the other, and of +blue, like that of imperfectly fused bottle-glass, in the centre. This +curious rock,--so nearly akin in composition and appearance to +obsidian,--a mineral which, in its dense form, closely resembles the +coarse dark-colored glass of which common bottles are made, and which, +in its lighter form, exists as pumice,--constitutes one of the links +that connect the trap with the unequivocally volcanic rocks. The one +mineral may be seen beside smoking crater, as in the Lipari Isles, +passing into pumice; while the other may be converted into a substance +almost identical with pumice, by the chemist. "It is stated by the +Honorable George Knox, of Dublin," says Mr. Robert Allan, in his +valuable mineralogical work, "that the pitchstone of Newry, on being +exposed to a high temperature, loses its bitumen and water, and is +converted into a light substance in every respect resembling pumice." +But of pumice in connection with the pitchstones of Eigg, more anon. + +Leaving our boat to return to the Betsey at John Stewart's leisure, and +taking with us his companion, to assist us in carrying such specimens as +we might procure, we passed westwards for a few hundred yards under the +crags, and came abreast of a dark angular opening at the base of the +precipice, scarce two feet in height, and in front of which there lies a +little sluggish, ankle-deep pool, half mud, half water, and matted over +with grass and rushes. Along the mural face of the rock of earthy +amygdaloid there runs a nearly vertical line, which in one of the +stratified rocks one might perhaps term the line of a fault, but which +in a trap rock may merely indicate where two semi-molten masses had +pressed against each other without uniting--just as currents of cooling +lead, poured by the plumber from the opposite end of a groove, sometimes +meet and press together, so as to make a close, polished joint, without +running into one piece. The little angular opening forms the lower +termination of the line, which, hollowing inwards, recedes near the +bottom into a shallow cave, roughened with tufts of fern and bunches of +long silky grass, here and there enlivened by the delicate flowers of +the lesser rock-geranium. A shower of drops patters from above among the +weeds and rushes of the little pool. My friend the minister stopped +short. "There," he said, pointing to the hollow, "you will find such a +bone cave as you never saw before. Within that opening there lie the +remains of an entire race, palpably destroyed, as geologists in so many +other cases are content merely to imagine, by one great catastrophe. +That is the famous cave of Frances (_Uamh Fraingh_), in which the whole +people of Eigg were smoked to death by the M'Leods." + +We struck a light, and, worming ourselves through the narrow entrance, +gained the interior,--a true rock gallery, vastly more roomy and lofty +than one could have anticipated from the mean vestibule placed in front +of it. Its extreme length we found to be two hundred and sixty feet; its +extreme breadth twenty-seven feet; its height, where the roof rises +highest, from eighteen to twenty feet. The cave seems to have owed its +origin to two distinct causes. The trap-rocks on each side of the +vertical fault-like crevice which separates them are greatly decomposed, +as if by the moisture percolating from above; and directly in the line +of the crevice must the surf have charged, wave after wave, for ages ere +the last upheaval of the land. When the Dog-stone at Dunolly existed as +a sea-stack, skirted with algae, the breakers on this shore must have +dashed every tide through the narrow opening of the cavern, and scooped +out by handfuls the decomposing trap within. The process of +decomposition, and consequent enlargement, is still going on inside, but +there is no longer an agent to sweep away the disintegrated fragments. +Where the roof rises highest, the floor is blocked up with accumulations +of bulky decaying masses, that have dropped from above; and it is +covered over its entire area by a stratum of earthy rubbish, which has +fallen from the sides and ceiling in such abundance, that it covers up +the straw beds of the perished islanders, which still exist beneath as a +brown mouldering felt, to the depth of from five to eight inches. Never +yet was tragedy enacted on a gloomier theatre. An uncertain twilight +glimmers gray at the entrance, from the narrow vestibule; but all +within, for full two hundred feet, is black as with Egyptian darkness. +As we passed onward with our one feeble light, along the dark mouldering +walls and roof, which absorbed every straggling ray that reached them, +and over the dingy floor, ropy and damp, the place called to +recollection that hall in Roman story, hung and carpeted with black, +into which Domitian once thrust his senate, in a frolic, to read their +own names on the coffin-lids placed against the wall. The darkness +seemed to press upon us from every side, as if it were a dense jetty +fluid, out of which our light had scooped a pailful or two, and that was +rushing in to supply the vacuum; and the only objects we saw distinctly +visible were each other's heads and faces, and the lighter parts of our +dress. + +The floor, for about a hundred feet inwards from the narrow vestibule, +resembles that of a charnel-house. At almost every step we came upon +heaps of human bones grouped together, as the Psalmist so graphically +describes, "as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth." They +are of a brownish, earthy hue, here and there tinged with green; the +skulls, with the exception of a few broken fragments, have disappeared; +for travellers in the Hebrides have of late years been numerous and +curious; and many a museum,--that at Abbotsford among the +rest,--exhibits, in a grinning skull, its memorial of the Massacre at +Eigg. We find, too, further marks of visitors in the single bones +separated from the heaps and scattered over the area; but enough still +remains to show, in the general disposition of the remains, that the +hapless islanders died under the walls in families, each little group +separated by a few feet from the others. Here and there the remains of a +detached skeleton may be seen, as if some robust islander, restless in +his agony, had stalked out into the middle space ere he fell; but the +social arrangement is the general one. And beneath every heap we find, +at the depth, as has been said, of a few inches, the remains of the +straw-bed upon which the family had lain, largely mixed with the smaller +bones of the human frame, ribs and vertebrae, and hand and feet bones; +occasionally, too, with fragments of unglazed pottery, and various other +implements of a rude housewifery. The minister found for me, under one +family heap, the pieces of a half-burned, unglazed earthen jar, with a +narrow mouth, that, like the sepulchral urns of our ancient tumuli, had +been moulded by the hand, without the assistance of the potter's wheel; +and to one of the fragments there stuck a minute pellet of gray hair. +From under another heap he disinterred the handle-stave of a child's +wooden porringer (_bicker_), perforated by a hole still bearing the mark +of the cord that had hung it to the wall; and beside the stave lay a few +of the larger, less destructible bones of the child, with what for a +time puzzled us both not a little,--one of the grinders of a horse. +Certain it was, no horse could have got there to have dropped a +tooth,--a foal of a week old could not have pressed itself through the +opening; and how the single grinder, evidently no recent introduction +into the cave, could have got mixed up in the straw with the human +bones, seemed an enigma somewhat of the class to which the reel in the +bottle belongs. I found in Edinburgh an unexpected commentator on the +mystery, in the person of my little boy,--an experimental philosopher in +his second year. I had spread out on the floor the curiosities of +Eigg,--among the rest, the relics of the cave, including the pieces of +earthern jar, and the fragment of the porringer; but the horse's tooth +seemed to be the only real curiosity among them in the eyes of little +Bill. He laid instant hold of it; and, appropriating it as a toy, +continued playing with it till he fell asleep. I have now little doubt +that it was first brought into the cave by the poor child amid whose +mouldering remains Mr. Swanson found it. The little pellet of gray hair +spoke of feeble old age involved in this wholesale massacre with the +vigorous manhood of the island; and here was a story of unsuspecting +infancy amusing itself on the eve of destruction with its toys. Alas, +for man! "Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city," said God to the +angry prophet, "wherein are more than six score thousand persons that +cannot discern between their right hand and their left?" God's image +must have been sadly defaced in the murderers of the poor inoffensive +children of Eigg, ere they could have heard their feeble wailings, +raised, no doubt, when the stifling atmosphere within began first to +thicken, and yet ruthlessly persist in their work of indiscriminate +destruction. + +Various curious things have from time to time been picked up from under +the bones. An islander found among them, shortly before our visit, a +sewing needle of copper, little more than an inch in length; fragments +of Eigg shoes, of the kind still made in the island, are of +comparatively common occurrence; and Mr. James Wilson relates, in the +singularly graphic and powerful description of _Uamh Fraingh_, which +occurs in his "Voyage round the Coasts of Scotland" (1841), that a +sailor, when he was there, disinterred, by turning up a flat stone, a +"buck-tooth" and a piece of money,--the latter a rusty copper coin, +apparently of the times of Mary of Scotland. I also found a few teeth; +they were sticking fast in a fragment of jaw; and, taking it for +granted, as I suppose I may, that the dentology of the murderous M'Leods +outside the cave must have very much resembled that of the murdered +M'Donalds within, very harmless looking teeth they were for being those +of an animal so maliciously mischievous as man. I have found in the Old +Red Sandstone the strong-based tusks of the semi-reptile Holoptychius; I +have chiselled out of the limestone of the Coal Measures the sharp, +dagger-like incisors of the Megalichthys; I have picked up in the Lias +and Oolite the cruel spikes of the Crocodile and the Ichthyosaurus; I +have seen the trenchant, saw-edged teeth of gigantic Cestracions and +Squalidae that had been disinterred from the Chalk and the London Clay; +and I have felt, as I examined them, that there could be no possibility +of mistake regarding the nature of the creatures to which they had +belonged;--they were teeth made for hacking, tearing, mangling,--for +amputating limbs at a bite, and laying open bulky bodies with a crunch; +but I could find no such evidence in the human jaw, with its three +inoffensive looking grinders, that the animal it had belonged to,--far +more ruthless and cruel than reptile-fish, crocodiles, or sharks,--was +of such a nature that it could destroy creatures of even its own kind by +hundreds at a time, when not in the least incited by hunger, and with no +ultimate intention of eating them. Man must surely have become an +immensely worse animal than his teeth show him to have been designed +for; his teeth give no real evidence regarding his real character. Who, +for instance, could gather from the dentology of the M'Leods the passage +in their history to which the cave of Frances bears evidence? + +We quitted the cave, with its stagnant damp atmosphere and its mouldy +unwholesome smells, to breathe the fresh sea-air on the beach without. +Its story, as recorded by Sir Walter in his "Tales of a Grandfather," +and by Mr. Wilson, in his "Voyage," must be familiar to the reader; and +I learned from my friend, versant in all the various island traditions +regarding it, that the less I inquired into its history on the spot, the +more was I likely to feel satisfied that I knew something about it. +There seem to have been no chroniclers, in this part of the Hebrides, in +the rude age of the unglazed pipkin and the copper needle; and many +years seem to have elapsed ere the story of their hapless possessors was +committed to writing; and so we find it existing in various and somewhat +conflicting editions. "Some hundred years ago," says Mr. Wilson, "a few +of the M'Leods landed in Eigg from Skye, where, having greatly +misconducted themselves, the Eiggites strapped them to their own boats, +which they sent adrift into the ocean. They were, however, rescued by +some clansmen; and, soon after, a strong body of the M'Leods set sail +from Skye, to revenge themselves on Eigg. The natives of the latter +island feeling they were not of sufficient force to offer resistance, +went and hid themselves (men, women, and children) in this secret cave, +which is narrow, but of great subterranean length, with an exceedingly +small entrance. It opens from the broken face of a steep bank along the +shore; and, as the whole coast is cavernous, their particular retreat +would have been sought for in vain by strangers. So the Skye-men, +finding the island uninhabited, presumed the natives had fled, and +satisfied their revengeful feelings by ransacking and pillaging the +empty houses. Probably the _movables_ were of no great value. They then +took their departure and left the island, when the sight of a solitary +human being among the cliffs awakened their suspicion, and induced them +to return. Unfortunately a slight sprinkling of snow had fallen, and the +footsteps of an individual were traced to the mouth of the cave. Not +having been there ourselves at the period alluded to, we cannot speak +with certainty as to the nature of the parley which ensued, or the +terms offered by either party; but we know that those were not the days +of protocols. The ultimatum was unsatisfactory to the Skye-men, who +immediately proceeded to 'adjust the preliminaries' in their own way, +which adjustment consisted in carrying a vast collection of heather, +ferns, and other combustibles, and making a huge fire just in the very +entrance of the _Uamh Fraingh_, which they kept up for a length of time; +and thus, by 'one fell smoke,' they smothered the entire population of +the island." + +Such is Mr. Wilson's version of the story, which, in all its leading +circumstances, agrees with that of Sir Walter. According, however, to at +least one of the Eigg versions, it was the M'Leod himself who had landed +on the island, driven there by a storm. The islanders, at feud with the +M'Leod's at the time, inhospitably rose upon him, as he bivouacked on +the shores of the Bay of Laig; and in a fray, in which his party had the +worse, his back was broken, and he was forced off half dead to sea. +Several months after, on his partial recovery, he returned, crook-backed +and infirm, to wreak his vengeance on the inhabitants, all of whom, +warned of his coming by the array of his galleys in the offing, hid +themselves in the cave, in which, however, they were ultimately +betrayed--as narrated by Sir Walter and Mr. Wilson--by the track of some +footpaths in a sprinkling of snow; and the implacable chieftain, giving +orders on the discovery, to unroof the houses in the neighborhood, +raised high a pile of rafters against the opening, and set it on fire. +And there he stood in front of the blaze, hump-backed and grim, till the +wild, hollow cry from the rock within had sunk into silence, and there +lived not a single islander of Eigg, man, woman, or child. The fact that +their remains should have been left to moulder in the cave is proof +enough, of itself, that none survived to bury the dead. I am inclined +to believe, from the appearance of the place, that smoke could scarcely +have been the real agent of destruction; then, as now, it would have +taken a great deal of pure smoke to smother a Highlander. It may be +perhaps deemed more probable, that the huge fire of rafter and roof-tree +piled close against the opening, and rising high over it, would draw out +the oxygen within as its proper food, till at length all would be +exhausted; and life would go out for want of it, like the flame of a +candle under an upturned jar. Sir Walter refers the date of the event to +some time "about the close of the sixteenth century;" and the coin of +Queen Mary, mentioned by Mr. Wilson, points at a period at least not +much earlier; but the exact time of its occurrence is so uncertain, that +a Roman Catholic priest of the Hebrides, in lately showing his people +what a very bad thing Protestantism is, instanced, as a specimen of its +average morality, the affair of the cave. The _Protestant_ M'Leods of +Skye, he said, full of hatred in their hearts, had murdered, wholesale, +their wretched brethren, the _Protestant_ M'Donalds of Eigg, and sent +them off to perdition before their time. + +Quitting the beach, we ascended the breezy hill-side on our way to the +Scuir,--an object so often and so well described, that it might be +perhaps prudent, instead of attempting one description more, to present +the reader with some of the already existing ones. "The Scuir of Eigg," +says Professor Jamieson, in his 'Mineralogy of the Western Islands,' "is +perfectly mural, and extends for upwards of a mile and a half, and rises +to a height of several hundred feet. It is entirely columnar, and the +columns rise in successive ranges, until they reach the summit, where, +from their great height, they appear, when viewed from below, +diminutive. Staffa is an object of the greatest beauty and regularity; +the pillars are as distinct as if they had been reared by the hand of +art; but it has not the extent or sublimity of the Scuir of Eigg. The +one may be compared with the greatest exertions of human power; the +other is characteristic of the wildest and most inimitable works of +nature." "The height of this extraordinary object is considerable," says +M'Culloch, dashing off his sketch with a still bolder hand; "yet its +powerful effect arises rather from its peculiar form, and the commanding +elevation which it occupies, than from its positive altitude. Viewed in +one direction, it presents a long irregular wall, crowning the summit of +the highest hill, while in the other it resembles a huge tower. Thus it +forms no natural combination of outline with the surrounding land, and +hence acquires that independence in the general landscape which +increases its apparent magnitude, and produces that imposing effect +which it displays. From the peculiar position of the Scuir, it must also +inevitably be viewed from a low station. Hence it everywhere towers high +above the spectator; while, like other objects on the mountain outline, +its apparent dimensions are magnified, and its dark mass defined on the +sky, so as to produce all the additional effects arising from strong +oppositions of light and shadow. The height of this rock is sufficient +in this stormy country frequently to arrest the passage of the clouds, +so as to be further productive of the most brilliant effects in +landscape. Often they may be seen hovering on its summit, and adding +ideal dimensions to the lofty face, or, when it is viewed on the +extremity, conveying the impression of a tower, the height of which is +such as to lie in the regions of the clouds. Occasionally they sweep +along the base, leaving its huge and black mass involved in additional +gloom, and resembling the castle of some Arabian enchanter, built on the +clouds, and suspended in air." It might be perhaps deemed somewhat +invidious to deal with pictures such as these in the style the +connoisseur in the "Vicar of Wakefield" dealt with the old painting, +when, seizing a brush, he daubed it over with brown varnish, and then +asked the spectators whether he had not greatly improved the tone of the +coloring. And yet it is just possible, that in the case of at least +M'Culloch's picture, the brown varnish might do no manner of harm. But a +homelier sketch, traced out on almost the same leading lines, with just +a little less of the aerial in it, may have nearly the same subduing +effect; I have, besides, a few curious touches to lay in, which seem +hitherto to have escaped observation and the pencil; and in these +several circumstances must lie my apology for adding one sketch more to +the sketches existing already. + +The Scuir of Eigg, then, is a veritable Giant's Causeway, like that on +the coast of Antrim, taken and magnified rather more than twenty times +in height, and some five or six times in breadth, and then placed on the +ridge of a hill nearly nine hundred feet high. Viewed sideways, it +assumes, as described by M'Culloch, the form of a perpendicular but +ruinous rampart, much gapped above, that runs for about a mile and a +quarter along the top of a lofty sloping talus. Viewed endways, it +resembles a tall massy tower,--such a tower as my friend, Mr. D.O. Hill, +would delight to draw, and give delight by drawing,--a tower three +hundred feet in breadth by four hundred and seventy feet in height, +perched on the apex of a pyramid, like a statue on a pedestal. This +strange causeway is columnar from end to end; but the columns, from +their great altitude and deficient breadth, seem mere rodded shafts in +the Gothic style; they rather resemble bundles of rods than +well-proportioned pillars. Few of them exceed eighteen inches in +diameter, and many of them fall short of half a foot; but, though lost +in the general mass of the Scuir as independent columns, when we view it +at an angle sufficiently large to take in its entire bulk, they yet +impart to it that graceful linear effect which we see brought out in +tasteful pencil sketches and good line engravings. We approached it this +day from the shore in the direction in which the eminence it stands upon +assumes the pyramidal form, and itself the tower-like outline. The +acclivity is barren and stony,--a true desert foreground, like those of +Thebes and Palmyra; and the huge square shadow of the tower stretched +dark and cold athwart it. The sun shone out clearly. One half the +immense bulk before us, with its delicate vertical lining, lay from top +to bottom in deep shade, massive and gray; one half presented its +many-sided columns to the light, here and there gleaming with tints of +extreme brightness, where the pitchstones presented their glassy planes +to the sun; its general outline, whether pencilled by the lighter or +darker tints, stood out sharp and clear; and a stratum of white fleecy +clouds floated slowly amid the delicious blue behind it. But the minuter +details I must reserve for my next chapter. One fact, however, +anticipated just a little out of its order, may heighten the interest of +the reader. There are massive buildings,--bridges of noble span, and +harbors that abut far into the waves,--founded on wooden piles; and this +hugest of hill-forts we find founded on wooden piles also. It is built +on what a Scotch architect would perhaps term a pile-_brander_ of the +_Pinites Eiggensis_, an ancient tree of the Oolite. The gigantic Scuir +of Eigg rests on the remains of a prostrate forest. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + Structure of the Scuir--A stray Column--The Piazza--A buried Pine + Forest the Foundation of the Scuir--Geological Poachers in a Fossil + Preserve--_Pinites Eiggensis_--Its Description--Witham's + Experiments on Fossil Pine of Eigg--Rings of the Pine--Ascent of + the Scuir--Appearance of the Top--White Pitchstone--Mr. Greig's + Discovery of Pumice--A Sunset Scene--The Manse and the Yacht--The + Minister's Story--A Cottage Repast--American Timber drifted to the + Hebrides--Agency of the Gulf Stream--The Minister's Sheep. + + +As we climbed the hill-side, and the Shinar-like tower before us rose +higher over the horizon at each step we took, till it seemed pointing at +the middle sky, we could mark peculiarities in its structure which +escape notice in the distance. We found it composed of various beds, +each of which would make a Giant's Causeway entire, piled over each +other like stories in a building, and divided into columns, vertical, or +nearly so, in every instance except in one bed near the base, in which +the pillars incline to a side, as if losing footing under the +superincumbent weight. Innumerable polygonal fragments,--single stones +of the building,--lie scattered over the slope, composed, like almost +all the rest of the Scuir, of a peculiar and very beautiful stone, +unlike any other in Scotland--a dark pitchstone-porphyry, which, +inclosing crystals of glassy feldspar, resembles in the hand-specimen, a +mass of black sealing-wax, with numerous pieces of white bugle stuck +into it. Some of the detached polygons are of considerable size; few of +them larger and bulkier, however, than a piece of column of this +characteristic porphyry, about ten feet in length by two feet in +diameter, which lies a full mile away from any of the others, in the +line of the old burying-ground, and distant from it only a few hundred +yards. It seems to have been carried there by man: we find its bearing +from the Scuir lying nearly at right angles with the direction of the +drift-boulders of the western coast, which are, besides, of rare +occurrence in the Hebrides; nor has it a single neighbor; and it seems +not improbable, as a tradition of the island testifies, that it was +removed thus far for the purpose of marking some place of sepulture, and +that the catastrophe of the cave arrested its progress after by far the +longer and rougher portion of the way had been passed. The dry-arm bones +of the charnel-house in the rock may have been tugging around it when +the galleys of the M'Leod hove in sight. The traditional history of +Eigg, said my friend the minister, compared with that of some of the +neighboring islands, presents a decapitated aspect: the M'Leods cut it +off by the neck. Most of the present inhabitants can tell which of their +ancestors, grandfather, or great-grandfather, or great-great-grandfather, +first settled in the place, and where they came from; and, with the +exception of a few vague legends about St. Donan and his grave, which were +preserved apparently among the people of the other Small Isles, the island +has no early traditional history. + +We had now reached the Scuir. There occur, intercalated with the +columnar beds, a few bands of a buff-colored non-columnar trap, +described by M'Culloch as of a texture intermediate between a greenstone +and a basalt, and which, while the pitchstone around it seems nearly +indestructible, has weathered so freely as to form horizontal grooves +along the face of the rock, from two to five yards in depth. One of +these runs for several hundred feet along the base of the Scuir, just at +the top of the talus, and greatly resembles a piazza, lacking the outer +pillars. It is from ten to twelve feet in height, by from fifteen to +twenty in depth; the columns of the pitch stone-bed immediately above +it seem perilously hanging in mid air; and along their sides there +trickles, in even the driest summer weather,--for the Scuir is a +condenser on an immense scale--minute runnels of water, that patter +ceaselessly in front of the long deep hollow, like rain from the eaves +of a cottage during a thunder shower. Inside, however, all is dry, and +the floor is covered to the depth of several inches with the dung of +sheep and cattle, that find, in this singular mountain piazza, a place +of shelter. We had brought a pickaxe with us; and the dry and dusty +floor, composed mainly of a gritty conglomerate, formed the scene of our +labors. It is richly fossiliferous, though the organisms have no +specific variety; and never, certainly, have I found the remains of +former creations in a scene in which they more powerfully addressed +themselves to the imagination. A stratum of peat-moss, mixed with +fresh-water shells, and resting on a layer of vegetable mould, from +which the stumps and roots of trees still protruded, was once found in +Italy, buried beneath an ancient tesselated pavement; and the whole gave +curious evidence of a kind fitted to picture to the imagination a +background vista of antiquity, all the more remotely ancient in aspect +from the venerable age of the object in front. Dry ground covered by +wood, a lake, a morass, and then dry ground again, had all taken +precedence, on the site of the tesselated pavement, in this instance, of +an old Roman villa. But what was antiquity in connection with a Roman +villa, to antiquity in connection with the Scuir of Eigg? Under the old +foundations of this huge wall we find the remains of a pine forest, +that, long ere a single bed of the porphyry had burst from beneath, had +sprung up and decayed on hill and beside stream in some nameless +land,--had then been swept to the sea,--had been entombed deep at the +bottom in a grit of Oolite,--had been heaved up to the surface, and +high over it, by volcanic agencies working from beneath,--and had +finally been built upon, as moles are built upon piles, by the architect +that had laid down the masonry of the gigantic Scuir, in one fiery layer +after another. The mountain wall of Eigg, with its dizzy elevation of +four hundred and seventy feet, is a wall founded on piles of pine laid +crossways; and, strange as the fact may seem, one has but to dig into +the floor of this deep-hewn piazza, to be convinced that at least it +_is_ a fact. + +Just at this interesting stage, however, our explorations bade fair to +be interrupted. Our man who carried the pickaxe had lingered behind us +for a few hundred yards, in earnest conversation with an islander; and +he now came up, breathless and in hot haste, to say that the islander, a +Roman Catholic tacksman in the neighborhood, had peremptorily warned him +that the Scuir of Eigg was the property of Dr. M'Pherson of Aberdeen, +not ours, and that the Doctor would be very angry at any man who meddled +with it. "That message," said my friend, laughing, but looking just a +little sad through the laugh, "would scarce have been sent us when I was +minister of the Establishment here; but it seems allowable in the case +of a poor Dissenter, and is no bad specimen of the thousand little ways +in which the Roman Catholic population of the island try to annoy me, +now that they see my back to the wall." I was tickled with the idea of a +fossil preserve, which coupled itself in my mind, through a trick of the +associative faculty, with the idea of a great fossil act for the +British empire, framed on the principles of the game-laws; and, just +wondering what sort of disreputable vagabonds geological poachers +would become under its deteriorating influence, I laid hold of the +pickaxe and broke into the stonefast floor; and thence I succeeded in +abstracting,--feloniously, I dare say, though the crime has not yet got +into the statute-book--some six or eight pieces of the _Pinites +Eiggensis_, amounting in all to about half a cubic foot of that very +ancient wood--value unknown. I trust, should the case come to a serious +bearing, the members of the London Geological Society will generously +subscribe half-a-crown a-piece to assist me in feeing counsel. There are +more interests than mine at stake in the affair. If I be cast and +committed,--I, who have poached over only a few miserable districts in +Scotland,--pray, what will become of some of them,--the Lyells, +Bucklands, Murchisons and Sedgwicks,--who have poached over whole +continents? + +We were successful in procuring several good specimens of the Eigg pine, +at a depth, in the conglomerate, of from eight to eighteen inches. Some +of the upper pieces we found in contact with the decomposing trap out of +which the hollow piazza above had been scooped; but the greater number, +as my set of specimens abundantly testify, lay embedded in the original +Oolitic grit in which they had been locked up, in, I doubt not, their +present fossil state, ere their upheaval, through Plutonic agency, from +their deep-sea bottom. The annual rings of the wood, which are quite as +small as in a slow-growing Baltic pine, are distinctly visible in all +the better pieces I this day transferred to my bag. In one fragment I +reckon sixteen rings in half an inch, and fifteen in the same space in +another. The trees to which they belonged seem to have grown on some +exposed hill-side, where, in the course of half a century, little more +than from two or three inches were added to their diameter. The _Pinites +Eiggensis_, or Eigg pine, was first introduced to the notice of the +scientific world by the late Mr. Witham, in whose interesting work on +"The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables" the reader may find it +figured and described. The specimen in which he studied its +peculiarities "was found," he says, "at the base of the magnificent +mural escarpment named the Scuir of Eigg,--not, however, _in situ_, but +among fragments of rocks of the Oolitic series." The authors of the +"Fossil Flora," where it is also figured, describe it as differing very +considerably in structure from any of the coniferae of the Coal Measures. +"Its medullary rays," says Messrs. Lindley and Hutton, "appear to be +more numerous, and frequently are not continued through one zone of wood +to another, but more generally terminate at the concentric circles. It +abounds also in turpentine vessels, or lacunae, of various sizes, the +sides of which are distinctly defined." Viewed through the microscope, +in transparent slips, longitudinal and transverse, it presents, within +the space of a few lines, objects fitted to fill the mind with wonder. +We find the minutest cells, glands, fibres, of the original wood +preserved uninjured. _There_ still are those medullary rays entire that +communicated between the pith and the outside,--_there_ still the ring +of thickened cells that indicated the yearly check which the growth +received when winter came on,--_there_ the polygonal reticulations of +the cross section, without a single broken mesh,--_there_, too, the +elongated cells in the longitudinal one, each filled with minute glands +that take the form of double circles,--_there_ also, of larger size and +less regular form, the lacunae in which the turpentine lay: every nicely +organized speck, invisible to the naked eye, we find in as perfect a +state of keeping in the incalculably ancient pile-work on which the +gigantic Scuir is founded, as in the living pines that flourish green on +our hill-sides. A net-work, compared with which that of the finest lace +ever worn by the fair reader would seem a net-work of cable, has +preserved entire, for untold ages, the most delicate peculiarities of +its pattern. There is not a mesh broken, nor a circular dot away! + +The experiments of Mr. Witham on the Eigg fossil, furnish an +interesting example of the light which a single, apparently simple, +discovery may throw on whole departments of fact. He sliced his specimen +longitudinally and across, fastened the slices on glass, ground them +down till they became semi-transparent, and then, examining them under +reflected light by the microscope, marked and recorded the specific +peculiarities of their structure. And we now know, in consequence, that +the ancient Eigg pine, to which the detached fragment picked up at the +base of the Scuir belonged,--a pine alike different from those of the +earlier carboniferous period and those which exist contemporary with +ourselves,--was, some _three creations_ ago, an exceedingly common tree +in the country now called Scotland,--as much so, perhaps, as the Scotch +fir is at the present day. The fossil trees found in such abundance in +the neighborhood of Helmsdale that they are burnt for lime,--the fossil +wood of Eathie, in Cromartyshire, and that of Shandwick, in Ross,--all +belong to the _Pinites Eiggensis_. It seems to have been a straight and +stately tree, in most instances, as in the Eigg specimens, of slow +growth. One of the trunks I saw near Navidale measured two feet in +diameter, but a full century had passed ere it attained to a bulk so +considerable; and a splendid specimen in my collection, from the same +locality, which measures twenty-one inches, exhibits even _more_ than a +hundred annual rings. In one of my specimens, and one only, the rings +are of great breadth. They differ from those of all the others in the +proportion in which I have seen the annual rings of a young, vigorous +fir that had sprung up in some rich, moist hollow, differ from the +annual rings of trees of the same species that had grown in the shallow, +hard soil of exposed hill-sides. And this one specimen furnishes curious +evidence that the often-marked but little understood law, which gives us +our better and worse seasons in alternate groups, various in number and +uncertain in their time of recurrence, obtained as early as the age of +the Oolite. The rings follow each other in groups of lesser and larger +breadth. One group of four rings measures an inch and a quarter across, +while an adjoining group of five rings measures only five-eighth parts; +and in a breadth of six inches there occur five of these alternate +groups. For some four or five years together, when this pine was a +living tree, the springs were late and cold, and the summers cloudy and +chill, as in that group of seasons which intervened between 1835 and +1841; and then, for four or five years, more springs were early and +summers genial, as in the after group of 1842, 1843 and 1844. An +arrangement in nature,--first observed, as we learn from Bacon, by the +people of the Low Countries, and which has since formed the basis of +meteoric tables, and of predictions and elaborate cycles of the +weather,--bound together the twelvemonths of the Oolitic period in +alternate bundles of better and worse: vegetation throve vigorously +during the summers of one group, and languished, in those of another, in +a state of partial development. + +Sending away our man shipwards, laden with a bag of fossil wood, we +ascended by a steep broken ravine to the top of the Scuir. The columns, +as we pass on towards the west, diminish in size, and assume in many of +the beds considerable variety of direction and form. In one bed they +belly over with a curve, like the ribs of some wrecked vessel from which +the planking has been torn away; in another they project in a straight +line, like muskets planted slantways on the ground to receive a charge +of cavalry; in others the inclination is inwards, like that of ranges of +stakes placed in front of a sea-dyke, to break the violence of the +waves; while yet in others they present, as in the eastern portion of +the Scuir, the common vertical direction. The ribbed appearance of every +crag and cliff, imparts to the scene a peculiar character; every larger +mass of light and shadow is corded with minute stripes; and the feeling +experienced among the more shattered peaks, and in the more broken +recesses, seems near akin to that which it is the tendency of some +magnificent ruin to excite, than that which awakens amid the sublime of +nature. We feel as if the pillared rocks around us were like the +Cyclopean walls of Southern Italy,--the erections of some old gigantic +race passed from the earth forever. The feeling must have been +experienced on former occasions, amid the innumerable pillars of the +Scuir; for we find M'Culloch, in his description, ingeniously analyzing +it. "The resemblance to architecture here is much increased," he says, +"by the columnar structure, which is sufficiently distinguishable, even +from a distance, and produces a strong effect of artificial regularity +when seen near at hand. To this vague association in the mind of the +efforts of art with the magnitude of nature, is owing much of that +sublimity of character which the Scuir presents. The sense of power is a +fertile source of the sublime; and as the appearance of power exerted, +no less than that of simplicity, is necessary to confer this character +on architecture, so the mind, insensibly transferring the operations of +nature to the efforts of art where they approximate in character, +becomes impressed with a feeling rarely excited by her more ordinary +forms, where these are even more stupendous." + +The top of the Scuir, more especially towards its eastern termination, +resembles that of some vast mole not yet levelled over by the workmen; +the pavement has not yet been laid down, and there are deep gaps in the +masonry, that run transversely, from side to side, still to fill up. +Along one of these ditch-like gaps, which serves to insulate the eastern +and highest portion of the Scuir from all its other portions, we find +fragments of a rude wall of uncemented stones, the remains of an +ancient hill-fort; which, with its natural rampart of rock on three of +its four sides, more than a hundred yards in sheer descent, and with its +deep ditch and rude wall on the fourth, must have formed one of the most +inaccessible in the kingdom. The masses of pitchstone a-top, though so +intensely black within, are weathered on the surface into almost a pure +white; and we found lying detached among them, fragments of common +amygdaloid and basalt, and minute slaty pieces of chalcedony that had +formed apparently in fissures of the trap. We would have scrutinized +more narrowly at the time had we expected to find anything more rare; +but I did not know until full four months after, that aught more rare +was to be found. Had we examined somewhat more carefully, we might +possibly have done what Mr. Woronzow Greig did on the Scuir about +eighteen years previous,--picked up on it a piece of _bona fide_ Scotch +pumice. This gentleman, well known through his exertions in statistical +science, and for his love of science in general, and whose tastes and +acquirements are not unworthy the son of Mrs. Somerville, has kindly +informed me by letter regarding his curious discovery. "I visited the +island of Eigg," he says, "in 1825 or 1826, for the purpose of shooting, +and remained in it several days; and as there was a great scarcity of +game, I amused myself in my wanderings by looking about for natural +curiosities. I knew little about Geology at the time, but, collecting +whatever struck my eye as uncommon, I picked up from the sides of the +Scuir, among various other things, a bit of fossil wood, and, nearly at +the summit of the eminence, a piece of pumice of a deep brownish-black +color, and very porous, the pores being large and round, and the +substance which divided them of a uniform thickness. This last specimen +I gave to Mr. Lyell, who said that it could not originally have belonged +to Eigg, though it might possibly have been washed there by the sea,--a +suggestion, however, with which its place on the top of the Scuir seems +ill to accord. I may add, that I have since procured a larger specimen +from the same place." This seems a curious fact, when we take into +account the identity, in their mineral components, of the pumice and +obsidian of the recent volcanoes; and that pitchstone, the obsidian of +the trap-rocks, is resolvable into a pumice by the art of the chemist. +If pumice was to be found anywhere in Scotland, we might _a priori_ +expect to find it in connection with by far the largest mass of +pitchstone in the kingdom. It is just possible, however, that Mr. +Greig's two specimens may not date farther back, in at least their +existing state, than the days of the hill-fort. Powerful fires would +have been required to render the exposed summit of the Scuir at all +comfortable; there is a deep peat-moss in its immediate neighborhood, +that would have furnished the necessary fuel; the wind must have been +sufficiently high on the summit to fan the embers into an intense white +heat; and if it was heat but half as intense as that which was employed +in fusing into one mass the thick vitrified ramparts of Craig Phadrig +and Knock Farril, on the east coast, it could scarce have failed to +anticipate the experiment of the Hon. Mr. Knox, of Dublin, by converting +some of the numerous pitchstone fragments that lie scattered about, +"into a light substance in every respect resembling pumice." + +It was now evening, and rarely have I witnessed a finer. The sun had +declined half-way adown the western sky, and for many yards the shadow +of the gigantic Scuir lay dark beneath us along the descending slope. +All the rest of the island, spread out at our feet as in a map, was +basking in yellow sunshine; and with its one dark shadow thrown from its +one mountain-elevated wall of rock, it seemed some immense fantastical +dial, with its gnomon rising tall in the midst. Far below, perched on +the apex of the shadow, and half lost in the line of the penumbra, we +could see two indistinct specks of black, with a dim halo around +each,--specks that elongated as we arose, and contracted as we sat, and +went gliding along the line as we walked. The shadows of two gnats +disporting on the edge of an ordinary gnomon would have seemed vastly +more important, in proportion, on the figured plane of the dial, than +these, our ghostly representatives, did here. The sea, spangled in the +wake of the sun with quick glancing light, stretched out its blue plain +around us; and we could see included in the wide prospect, on the one +hand, at once the hill-chains of Morven and Kintail, with the many +intervening lochs and bold jutting headlands that give variety to the +mainland; and, on the other, the variously complexioned Hebrides, from +the Isle of Skye to Uist and Barra, and from Uist and Barra to Tiree and +Mull. The contiguous Small Isles, Muck and Rum, lay moored immediately +beside us, like vessels of the same convoy that in some secure roadstead +drop anchor within hail of each other. I could willingly have lingered +on the top of the Scuir until after sunset; but the minister, who, ever +and anon, during the day, had been conning over some notes jotted on a +paper of wonderfully scant dimensions, reminded me that this was the +evening of his week-day discourse, and that we were more than a +particularly rough mile from the place of meeting, and within, half an +hour of the time. I took one last look of the scene ere we commenced our +descent. There, in the middle of the ample parish glebe, that looked +richer and greener in the light of the declining sun than at any former +period during the day,--rose the snug parish manse; and yonder,--in an +open island channel, with a strip of dark rocks fringing the land +within, and another dark strip fringing the barren Eilean Chaisteil +outside,--lay the Betsey, looking wonderfully diminutive, but evidently +a little thing of high spirit, taut-masted, with a smart rake aft, and a +spruce outrigger astern, and flaunting her triangular flag of blue in +the sun. I pointed first to the manse, and then to the yacht. The +minister shook his head. + +"'Tis a time of strange changes," he said; "I thought to have lived and +died in that house, and found a quiet grave in the burying-ground yonder +beside the ruin; but my path was a clear though a rugged one; and from +almost the moment that it opened up to me, I saw what I had to expect. +It has been said that I might have lain by here in this out-of-the-way +corner, and suffered the Church question to run its course, without +quitting my hold of the Establishment. And so I perhaps might. It is +easy securing one's own safety, in even the worst of times, if one look +no higher; and I, as I had no opportunity of mixing in the contest, or +of declaring my views respecting it, might be regarded as an unpledged +man. But the principles of the Evangelical party were my principles; and +it would have been consistent with neither honor nor religion to have +hung back in the day of battle, and suffered the men with whom in heart +I was at one to pay the whole forfeit of our common quarrel. So I +attended the Convocation, and pledged myself to stand or fall with my +brethren. On my return I called my people together, and told them how +the case stood, and that in May next I bade fair to be a dependent for a +home on the proprietor of Eigg. And so they petitioned the proprietor +that he might give me leave to build a house among them,--exactly the +same sort of favor granted to the Roman Catholics of the island. But +month after month passed, and they got no reply to their petition; and I +was left in suspense, not knowing whether I was to have a home among +them or no. I did feel the case a somewhat hard one. The father of Dr. +M'Pherson of Eigg had been, like myself, a humble Scotch minister; and +the Doctor, however indifferent to his people's wishes in such a matter, +might have just thought that a man in his father's station in life, with +a wife and family dependent on him, was placed by his silence in cruel +circumstances of uncertainty. Ere the Disruption took place, however, I +came to know pretty conclusively what I had to expect. The Doctor's +factor came to Eigg, and, as I was informed, told the Islanders that it +was not likely the Doctor would permit a _third_ place of worship on the +Island: the Roman Catholics had one, and the Establishment had a kind of +one, and there was to be no more. The factor, an active +messenger-at-arms, useful in raising rents in these parts, has always +been understood to speak the mind of his master; but the congregation +took heart in the emergency, and sent off a second petition to Dr. +M'Pherson, a week or so previous to the Disruption. Ere _it_ received an +answer, the Disruption took place; and, laying the whole circumstances +before my brethren in Edinburgh, who, like myself, interpreted the +silence of the Doctor into a refusal, I suggested to them the scheme of +the Betsey, as the only scheme through which I could keep up unbroken my +connection with my people. So the trial is now over, and here we are, +and yonder is the Betsey." + +We descended the Scuir together for the place of meeting, and entered, +by the way, the cottage of a worthy islander, much attached to his +minister. "We are both very hungry," said my friend: "we have been out +among the rocks since breakfast-time, and are wonderfully disposed to +eat. Do not put yourself about, but give us anything you have at hand." +There was a bowl of rich milk brought us, and a splendid platter of +mashed potatoes, and we dined like princes. I observed, for the first +time, in the interior of this cottage, what I had frequent occasion to +remark afterwards, that much of the wood used in building in the smaller +and outer islands of the Hebrides must have drifted across the Atlantic, +borne eastwards and northwards by the great Gulf-stream. Many of the +beams and boards, sorely drilled by the _Teredo navalis_, are of +American timber, that, from time to time, has been cast upon the +shore,--a portion of it, apparently, from timber-laden vessels +unfortunate in their voyage, but a portion of it, also, with root and +branch still attached, bearing mark of having been swept to the sea by +transatlantic rivers. Nuts and seeds of tropical plants are occasionally +picked up on the beach. My friend gave me a bean or nut of the _Dolichos +urens_, or cow-itch shrub, of the West Indies, which an islander had +found on the shore sometime in the previous year, and given to one of +the manse children as a toy; and I attach some little interest to it, as +a curiosity of the same class with the large canes and the fragment of +carved wood found floating near the shores of Madeira by the +brother-in-law of Columbus, and which, among other pieces of +circumstantial evidence, led the great navigator to infer the existence +of a western continent. Curiosities of this kind seem still more common +in the northern than in the western islands of Scotland. "Large exotic +nuts or seeds," says Dr. Patrick Neill, in his interesting "Tour," +quoted in a former chapter, "which in Orkney are known by the name of +Molucca beans, are occasionally found among the _rejectamenta_ of the +sea, especially after westerly winds. There are two kinds commonly +found: the larger (of which the fishermen very generally make +snuff-boxes) seem to be seeds from the great pod of the _Mimosa +scandens_ of the West Indies; the smaller seeds, from the pod of the +_Dolichos urens_, also a native of the same region. It is probable that +the currents of the ocean, and particularly that great current which +issues from the Gulf of Florida, and is hence denominated the Gulf +Stream, aid very much in transporting across the mighty Atlantic these +American products. They are generally quite fresh and entire, and afford +an additional proof how impervious to moisture, and how imperishable, +nuts and seeds generally are." + +The evening was fast falling ere the minister closed his discourse; and +we had but just light enough left, on reaching the Betsey, to show us +that there lay a dead sheep on the deck. It had been sent aboard to be +killed by the minister's factotum, John Stewart; but John was at the +evening preaching at the time, and the poor sheep, in its attempts to +set itself free, had got itself entangled among the cords, and strangled +itself. "Alas, alas!" exclaimed the minister, "thus ends our hope of +fresh mutton for the present, and my hapless speculation as a sheep +farmer for evermore." I learned from him, afterwards, over our tea, that +shortly previous to the Convocation he had got his glebe,--one of the +largest in Scotland,--well stocked with sheep and cattle, which he had +to sell, immediately on the Disruption, in miserably bad condition, at a +loss of nearly fifty per cent. He had a few sheep, however, that would +not sell at all, and that remained on the glebe, in consequence, until +his successor entered into possession. And he, honest man, straightway +impounded them, and got them incarcerated in a dark, dirty hole, +somewhat in the way Giant Despair incarcerated the pilgrims,--a thing he +had quite a legal right to do, seeing that the mile-long glebe, with its +many acres of luxuriant pasture, was now as much his property as it had +been Mr. Swanson's a few months before, and seeing Mr. Swanson's few +sheep had no right to crop his grass. But a worthy neighbor +interfered,--Mr. M'Donald, of Keil, the principal tenant in the island. +Mr. M'Donald,--a practical commentator on the law of kindness,--was +sorely scandalized at what he deemed the new minister's gratuitous +unkindness to a brother in calamity; and, relieving the sheep, he +brought them to his own farm, where he found them board and lodging on +my friend's behalf, till they could be used up at leisure. And it was +one of the last of this unfortunate lot that now contrived to escape +from us by anticipating John Stewart. "A black beginning makes a black +ending," said Gouffing Jock, an ancient border shepherd, when his only +sheep, a black ewe, the sole survivor of a flock smothered in a +snow-storm, was worried to death by his dogs. Then, taking down his +broadsword, he added, "Come awa, my auld friend; thou and I maun e'en +stock Bowerhope-Law ance mair!" Less warlike than Gouffing Jock, we were +content to repeat over the dead, on this occasion, simply the first +portion of his speech; and then, betaking ourselves to our cabin, we +forgot all our sorrows over our tea. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + An Excursion--The Chain of Crosses--Bay of Laig--Island of + Rum--Description of the Island--Superstitions banished by pure + Religion--Fossil Shells--Remarkable Oyster Bed--New species of + Belemnite--Oolitic Shells--White Sandstone Precipices--Gigantic + Petrified Mushrooms--"Christabel" in Stone--Musical Sand--_Jabel + Nakous_, or Mountain of the Bell--Experiments of Travellers at + _Jabel Nakous_--Welsted's Account--_Reg-Rawan_, or the Moving + Sand--The Musical Sounds inexplicable--Article on the subject in + the North British Review. + + +There had been rain during the night; and when I first got on deck, a +little after seven, a low stratum of mist, that completely enveloped the +Scuir, and truncated both the eminence on which it stands and the +opposite height, stretched like a ruler across the flat valley which +indents so deeply the middle of the island. But the fogs melted away as +the morning rose, and ere our breakfast was satisfactorily discussed, +the last thin wreath had disappeared from around the columned front of +the rock-tower of Eigg, and a powerful sun looked down on moist slopes +and dank hollows, from which there arose in the calm a hazy vapor, that, +while it softened the lower features of the landscape, left the bold +outline relieved against a clear sky. Accompanied by our attendant of +the previous day, bearing bag and hammer, we set out a little before +eleven for the north-western side of the island, by a road which winds +along the central hollow. My friend showed me as we went, that on the +edge of an eminence, on which the traveller journeying westwards catches +the last glimpse of the chapel of St. Donan, there had once been a rude +cross erected, and another rude cross on an eminence on which he catches +the last glimpse of the first; and that there had thus been a chain of +stations formed from sea to sea, like the sights of a land-surveyor, +from one of which a second could be seen, and a third from the second, +till, last of all, the emphatically holy point of the island,--the +burial-place of the old Culdee,--came full in view. The unsteady +devotion, that journeyed, fancy-bound, along the heights, to gloat over +a dead man's bones, had its clue to carry it on in a straight line. Its +trail was on the ground; it glided snake-like from cross to cross, in +quest of dust; and, without its finger-posts to guide it, would have +wandered devious. It is surely a better devotion that, instead of thus +creeping over the earth to a mouldy sepulchre, can at once launch into +the sky, secure of finding Him who once arose from one. In less than an +hour we were descending on the Bay of Laig, a semi-circular indentation +of the coast, about a mile in length, and, where it opens to the main +sea, nearly two miles in breadth; with the noble island of Rum rising +high in front, like some vast breakwater; and a meniscus of +comparatively level land, walled in behind by a semi-circular rampart of +continuous precipice, sweeping round its shores. There are few finer +scenes in the Hebrides than that furnished by this island bay and its +picturesque accompaniments,--none that break more unexpectedly on the +traveller who descends upon it from the east; and rarely has it been +seen, to greater advantage than on the delicate day, so soft, and yet so +sunshiny and clear, on which I paid it my first visit. + +The island of Rum, with its abrupt sea-wall of rock, and its +steep-pointed hills, that attain, immediately over the sea, an elevation +of more than two thousand feet, loomed bold and high in the offing, some +five miles away, but apparently much nearer. The four tall summits of +the island rose clear against the sky like a group of pyramids; its +lower slopes and precipices, variegated and relieved by graceful +alternations of light and shadow, and resting on their blue basement of +sea, stood out with equal distinctness; but the entire middle space from +end to end was hidden in a long horizontal stratum of gray cloud, edged +atop with a lacing of silver. Such was the aspect of the noble +breakwater in front. Fully two-thirds of the semi-circular rampart of +rock which shuts in the crescent-shaped plain directly opposite lay in +deep shadow; but the sun shone softly on the plain itself, brightening +up many a dingy cottage, and many a green patch of corn; and the bay +below stretched out, sparkling in the light. There is no part of the +island so thickly inhabited as this flat meniscus. It is composed almost +entirely of Oolitic rocks, and bears atop, especially where an ancient +oyster-bed of great depth forms the subsoil, a kindly and fertile mould. +The cottages lie in groups; and, save where a few bogs, which it would +be no very difficult matter to drain, interpose their rough shag of dark +green, and break the continuity, the plain around them waves with corn. +Lying fair, green and populous within the sweep of its inaccessible +rampart of rock, at least twice as lofty as the ramparts of Babylon of +old, it reminds one of the suburbs of some ancient city lying embosomed, +with all its dwellings and fields, within some roomy crescent of the +city wall. We passed, ere we entered on the level, a steep-sided narrow +dell, through which a small stream finds its way from the higher +grounds, and which terminates at the upper end in an abrupt precipice, +and a lofty but very slim cascade. "One of the few superstitions that +still linger on the island," said my friend the minister, "is associated +with that wild hollow. It is believed that shortly before a death takes +place among the inhabitants, a tall withered female may be seen in the +twilight, just yonder where the rocks open, washing a shroud in the +stream. John, there, will perhaps tell you how she was spoken to on one +occasion, by an over-bold, over-inquisitive islander, curious to know +whose shroud she was preparing; and how she more than satisfied his +curiosity, by telling him it was his own. It is a not uninteresting +fact," added the minister, "that my poor people, since they have become +more earnest about their religion, think very little about ghosts and +spectres: their faith in the realities of the unseen world seems to have +banished from their minds much of their old belief in its phantoms." + +In the rude fences that separate from each other the little farms in +this plain, we find frequent fragments of the oyster bed, hardened into +a tolerably compact limestone. It is seen to most advantage, however, in +some of the deeper cuttings in the fields, where the surrounding matrix +exists merely as an incoherent shale; and the shells may be picked out +as entire as when they lay, ages before, in the mud, which we still see +retaining around them its original color. They are small, thin, +triangular, much resembling in form some specimens of the _Ostrea +deltoidea_, but greatly less in size. The nearest resembling shell in +Sowerby is the _Ostrea acuminata_,--an oyster of the clay that underlies +the great Oolite of Bath. Few of the shells exceed an inch and a half in +length, and the majority fall short of an inch. What they lack in bulk, +however, they make up in number. They are massed as thickly together, to +the depth of several feet, as shells on the heap at the door of a +Newhaven fisherman, and extend over many acres. Where they lie open we +can still detect the triangular disc of the hinge, with the single +impression of the abductor muscle; and the foliaceous character of the +shell remains in most instances as distinct as if it had undergone no +mineral change. I have seen nowhere in Scotland, among the secondary +formations, so unequivocal an oyster-bed; nor do such beds seem to be at +all common in formations older than the Tertiary in England, though the +oyster itself is sufficiently so. We find Mantell stating, in his +recent work ("Medals of Creation"), after first describing an immense +oyster bed of the London Basin, that underlies the city (for what is now +London was once an oyster-bed), that in the chalk below, though it +contains several species of Ostrea, the shells are diffused +promiscuously throughout the general mass. Leaving, however, these +oysters of the Oolite, which never net inclosed nor drag disturbed, +though they must have formed the food of many an extinct order of +fish,--mayhap reptile,--we pass on in a south-western direction, +descending in the geological scale as we go, until we reach the southern +side of the Bay of Laig. And there, far below tide-mark, we find a +dark-colored argillaceous shale of the Lias, greatly obscured by +boulders of trap,--the only deposit of the Liasic formation in the +island. + +A line of trap-hills that rises along the shore seems as if it had +strewed half its materials over the beach. The rugged blocks lie thick +as stones in a causeway, down to the line of low ebb,--memorials of a +time when the surf dashed against the shattered bases of the trap-hills, +now elevated considerably beyond its reach; and we can catch but partial +glimpses of the shale below. Wherever access to it can be had, we find +it richly fossiliferous; but its organisms, with the exception of its +Belemnites, are very imperfectly preserved. I dug up from under the +trap-blocks some of the common Liasic Ammonites of the north-eastern +coast of Scotland, a few of the septa of a large Nautilus, broken pieces +of wood, and half-effaced casts of what seems a branched coral; but only +minute portions of the shells have been converted into stone; here and +there a few chambers in the whorls of an Ammonite or Nautilus, though +the outline of the entire organism lies impressed in the shale; and the +ligneous and polyparious fossils we find in a still greater state of +decay. The Belemnite alone, as is common with this robust fossil,--so +often the sole survivor of its many contemporaries,--has preserved its +structure entire. I disinterred from the shale good specimens of the +Belemnite _sulcatus_ and Belemnite _elongatus_, and found, detached on +the surface of the bed, a fragment of a singularly large Belemnite, a +full inch and a quarter in diameter, the species of which I could not +determine. + +Returning by the track we came, we reach the bottom of the bay, which we +find much obscured with sand and shingle; and pass northwards along its +side, under a range of low sandstone precipices, with interposing grassy +slopes, in which the fertile Oolitic meniscus descends to the beach. The +sandstone, white and soft, and occurring in thick beds, much resembles +that of the Oolite of Sutherland. We detect in it few traces of fossils; +now and then a carbonaceous marking, and now and then what seems a thin +vein of coal, but which proves to be merely the bark of some woody stem, +converted into a glossy bituminous lignite, like that of Brora. But in +beds of a blue clay, intercalated with the sandstone, we find fossils in +abundance, of a character less obscure. We spent a full half-hour in +picking out shells from the bottom of a long dock-like hollow among the +rocks, in which a bed of clay has yielded to the waves, while the strata +on either side stand up over it like low wharfs on the opposite side of +a river. The shells, though exceedingly fragile,--for they partake of +the nature of the clayey matrix in which they are imbedded,--rise as +entire as when they had died among the mud, years, mayhap ages, ere the +sandstone had been deposited over them; and we were enabled at once to +detect their extreme dissimilarity, as a group, to the shells of the +Liasic deposit we had so lately quitted. We did not find in this bed a +single Ammonite, Belemnite, or Nautilus; but chalky Bivalves, resembling +our existing Tellina, in vast abundance, mixed with what seem to be a +small Buccinum and a minute Trochus, with numerous rather equivocal +fragments of a shell resembling an Oiliva. So thickly do they lie +clustered together in this deposit, that in some patches where the +sad-colored argillaceous ground is washed bare by the sea, it seems +marbled with them into a light gray tint. The group more nearly +resembles in type a recent one than any I have yet seen in a secondary +deposit, except perhaps in the Weald of Moray, where we find in one of +the layers a Planorbis scarce distinguishable from those of our ponds +and ditches, mingled with a Paludina that seems as nearly modelled after +the existing form. From the absence of the more characteristic shells of +the Oolite, I am inclined to deem the deposit one of estuary origin. Its +clays were probably thrown down, like the silts of so many of our +rivers, in some shallow bay, where the waters of a descending stream +mingled with those of the sea, and where, though shells nearly akin to +our existing periwinkles and whelks congregate thickly, the Belemnite, +seared by the brackish water, never plied its semi-cartilaginous fins, +or the Nautilus or Ammonite hoisted its membranaceous sail. + +We pass on towards the north. A thick bed of an extremely soft white +sandstone presents here, for nearly half a mile together, its front to +the waves, and exhibits, under the incessant wear of the surf, many +singularly grotesque combinations of form. The low precipices, +undermined at the base, beetle over like the sides of stranded vessels. +One of the projecting promontories we find hollowed through and through +by a tall rugged archway; while the outer pier of the arch,--if pier we +may term it,--worn to a skeleton, and jutting outwards with a knee-like +angle, presents the appearance of a thin ungainly leg and splay foot, +advanced, as if in awkward courtesy, to the breakers. But in a winter +or two, judging from its present degree of attenuation, and the yielding +nature of its material, which resembles a damaged mass of arrow-root, +consolidated by lying in the leaky hold of a vessel, its persevering +courtesies will be over, and pier and archway must lie in shapeless +fragments on the beach. Wherever the surf has broken into the upper +surface of this sandstone bed, and worn it down to nearly the level of +the shore, what seem a number of double ramparts, fronting each other, +and separated by deep square ditches exactly parallel in the sides, +traverse the irregular level in every direction. The ditches vary in +width from one to twelve feet; and the ramparts, rising from three to +six feet over them, are perpendicular as the walls of houses, where they +front each other, and descend on the opposite sides in irregular slopes. +The iron block, with square groove and projecting ears, that receives +the bar of a railway, and connects it with the stone below, represents +not inadequately a section of one of these ditches, with its ramparts. +They form here the sole remains of dykes of an earthy trap, which, +though at one time in a state of such high fusion that they converted +the portions of soft sandstone in immediate contact with them into the +consistence of quartz rock, have long since mouldered away, leaving but +the hollow rectilinear rents which they had occupied, surmounted by the +indurated walls which they had baked. Some of the most curious +appearances, however, connected with the sandstone, though they occur +chiefly in an upper bed, are exhibited by what seem fields of petrified +mushrooms, of a gigantic size, that spread out in some places for +hundreds of yards under the high-water level. These apparent mushrooms +stand on thick squat stems, from a foot to eighteen inches in height; +the heads are round like those of toad-stools, and vary from one foot to +nearly two yards in diameter. In some specimens we find two heads +joined together in a form resembling a squat figure of _eight_, of what +printers term the Egyptian type, or, to borrow the illustration of +M'Culloch, "like the ancient military projectile known by the name of +double-headed shot;" in other specimens three heads have coalesced in a +trefoil shape, or rather in a shape like that of an ace of clubs +divested of the stem. By much the greater number, however, are +spherical. They are composed of concretionary masses, consolidated, like +the walls of the dykes, though under some different process, into a hard +siliceous stone, that has resisted those disintegrating influences of +the weather and the surf, under which the yielding matrix in which they +were embedded has worn from around them. Here and there we find them +lying detached on the beach, like huge shot, compared with which the +greenstone balls of Mons Meg are but marbles for children to play with; +in other cases they project from the mural front of rampart-like +precipices, as if they had been showered into them by the ordnance of +some besieging battery, and had stuck fast in the mason-work. Abbotsford +has been described as a romance in stone and lime; we have here, on the +shores of Laig, what seems a wild but agreeable tale, of the extravagant +cast of "Christabel," or the "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner," fretted +into sandstone. But by far the most curious part of the story remains to +be told. + +The hollows and fissures of the lower sandstone bed we find filled with +a fine quartzose sand, which, from its pure white color, and the +clearness with which the minute particles reflect the light, reminds one +of accumulations of potato-flour drying in the sun. It is formed almost +entirely of disintegrated particles of the soft sandstone; and as we at +first find it occurring in mere handfuls, that seem as if they had been +detached from the mass during the last few tides, we begin to marvel to +what quarter the missing materials of the many hundred cubic yards of +rock, ground down along the shore in this bed during the last century or +two, have been conveyed away. As we pass on northwards, however, we see +the white sand occurring in much larger quantities,--here heaped up in +little bent-covered hillocks above the reach of the tide,--there +stretching out in level, ripple-marked wastes into the waves,--yonder +rising in flat narrow spits among the shallows. At length we reach a +small, irregularly-formed bay, a few hundred feet across, floored with +it from side to side; and see it, on the one hand, descending deep into +the sea, that exhibits over its whiteness a lighter tint of green, and, +on the other, encroaching on the land, in the form of drifted banks, +covered with the plants common to our tracts of sandy downs. The +sandstone bed that has been worn down to form it contains no fossils, +save here and there a carbonaceous stem; but in an underlying harder +stratum we occasionally find a few shells; and, with a specimen in my +hand charged with a group of bivalves resembling the existing conchifera +of our sandy beaches, I was turning aside this sand of the Oolite, so +curiously reduced to its original state, and marking how nearly the +recent shells that lay embedded in it resembled the extinct ones that +had lain in it so long before, when I became aware of a peculiar sound +that it yielded to the tread, as my companions paced over it. I struck +it obliquely with my foot, where the surface lay dry and incoherent in +the sun, and the sound elicited was a shrill, sonorous note, somewhat +resembling that produced by a waxed thread, when tightened between the +teeth and the hand, and tipped by the nail of the forefinger. I walked +over it, striking it obliquely at each step, and with every blow the +shrill note was repeated. My companions joined me; and we performed a +concert, in which, if we could boast of but little variety in the tones +produced, we might at least challenge all Europe for an instrument of +the kind which produced them. It seemed less wonderful that there should +be music in the granite of Memnon, than in the loose Oolitic sand of the +Bay of Laig. As we marched over the drier tracts, an incessant _woo_, +_woo_, _woo_, rose from the surface, that might be heard in the calm +some twenty or thirty yards away; and we found that where a damp +semi-coherent stratum lay at the depth of three or four inches beneath, +and all was dry and incoherent above, the tones were loudest and +sharpest, and most easily evoked by the foot. Our discovery,--for I +trust I may regard it as such,--adds a third locality to two previously +known ones, in which what may be termed the musical sand,--no unmeet +counterpart to the "singing water" of the tale,--has now been found. And +as the island of Eigg is considerably more accessible than _Jabel +Nakous_, in Arabia Petraea, or _Reg-Rawan_, in the neighborhood of Cabul, +there must be facilities presented through the discovery which did not +exist hitherto, for examining the phenomenon in acoustics which it +exhibits,--a phenomenon, it may be added, which some of our greatest +masters of the science have confessed their inability to explain. + +_Jabel Nakous_, or the "Mountain of the Bell," is situated about three +miles from the shores of the Gulf of Suez, in that land of wonders which +witnessed for forty years the journeyings of the Israelites, and in +which the granite peaks of Sinai and Horeb overlook an arid wilderness +of rock and sand. It had been known for many ages by the wild Arab of +the desert, that there rose at times from this hill a strange, +inexplicable music. As he leads his camel past in the heat of the day, a +sound like the first low tones of an Aeolian harp stirs the hot +breezeless air. It swells louder and louder in progressive undulations, +till at length the dry baked earth seems to vibrate under foot, and the +startled animal snorts and rears, and struggles to break away. According +to the Arabian account of the phenomenon, says Sir David Brewster, in +his "Letters on Natural Magic," there is a convent miraculously +preserved in the bowels of the hill; and the sounds are said to be those +of the "_Nakous_, a long metallic ruler, suspended horizontally, which +the priest strikes with a hammer, for the purpose of assembling the +monks to prayer." There exists a tradition that on one occasion a +wandering Greek saw the mountain open, and that, entering by the gap, he +descended into the subterranean convent, where he found beautiful +gardens and fountains of delicious water, and brought with him to the +upper world, on his return, fragments of consecrated bread. The first +European traveller who visited _Jabel Nakous_, says Sir David, was M. +Seetzen, a German. He journeyed for several hours over arid sands, and +under ranges of precipices inscribed by mysterious characters, that +tell, haply, of the wanderings of Israel under Moses. And reaching, +about noon, the base of the musical fountain, he found it composed of a +white friable sandstone, and presenting on two of its sides sandy +declivities. He watched beside it for an hour and a quarter, and then +heard, for the first time, a low undulating sound, somewhat resembling +that of a humming top, which rose and fell, and ceased and began, and +then ceased again; and in an hour and three quarters after, when in the +act of climbing along the declivity, he heard the sound yet louder and +more prolonged. It seemed as if issuing from under his knees, beneath +which the sand, disturbed by his efforts, was sliding downwards along +the surface of the rock. Concluding that the sliding sand was the cause +of the sounds, not an effect of the vibrations which they occasioned, he +climbed to the top of one of the declivities, and, sliding downwards, +exerted himself with hands and feet to set the sand in motion. The +effect produced far exceeded his expectations; the incoherent sand +rolled under and around in a vast sheet; and so loud was the noise +produced, that "the earth seemed to tremble beneath him to such a +degree, that he states he should certainly have been afraid if he had +been ignorant of the cause." At the time Sir David Brewster wrote +(1832), the only other European who had visited _Jabel Nakous_ was Mr. +Gray, of University College, Oxford. This gentleman describes the noises +he heard, but which he was unable to trace to their producing cause, as +"beginning with a low continuous murmuring sound, which seemed to rise +beneath his feet," but "which gradually changed into pulsations as it +became louder, so as to resemble the striking of a clock, and became so +strong at the end of five minutes _as to detach the sand_." The Mountain +of the Bell has been since carefully explored by Lieutenant J. Welsted, +of the Indian navy; and the reader may see it exhibited in a fine +lithograph, in his travels, as a vast irregularly conical mass of broken +stone, somewhat resembling one of our Highland cairns, though, of +course, on a scale immensely more huge, with a steep, angular slope of +sand resting in a hollow in one of its sides, and rising to nearly its +apex. "It forms," says Lieutenant Welsted, "one of a ridge of low, +calcareous hills, at a distance of three and a half miles from the +beach, to which a sandy plain, extending with a gentle rise to their +base, connects them. Its height, about four hundred feet, as well as the +material of which it is composed,--a light-colored friable +sandstone,--is about the same as the rest of the chain; but an inclined +plane of almost impalpable sand rises at an angle of forty degrees with +the horizon, and is bounded by a semi-circle of rocks, presenting +broken, abrupt, and pinnacled forms, and extending to the base of this +remarkable hill. Although their shape and arrangement in some respects +may be said to resemble a whispering gallery, yet I determined by +experiment that their irregular surface renders them but ill adapted for +the production of an echo. Seated at a rock at the base of the sloping +eminence, I directed one of the Bedouins to ascend; and it was not until +he had reached some distance that I perceived the sand in motion, +rolling down the hill to the depth of a foot. It did not, however, +descend in one continued stream; but, as the Arab scrambled up, it +spread out laterally and upwards, until a considerable portion of the +surface was in motion. At their commencement the sounds might be +compared to the faint strains of an Aeolian harp when its strings first +catch the breeze: as the sand became more violently agitated by the +increased velocity of the descent, the noise more nearly resembled that +produced by drawing the moistened fingers over glass. As it reached the +base, the reverberations attained the loudness of distant thunder, +causing the rock on which we were seated to vibrate; and our +camels,--animals not easily frightened,--became so alarmed that it was +with difficulty their drivers could restrain them." + +"The hill of _Reg-Rawan_ or the 'Moving Sand,'" says the late Sir +Alexander Burnes, by whom the place was visited in the autumn of 1837, +and who has recorded his visit in a brief paper, illustrated by a rude +lithographic view, in the "Journal of the Asiatic Society" for 1838, "is +about forty miles north of Cabul, towards Hindu-kush, and near the base +of the mountains." It rises to the height of about four hundred feet, in +an angle formed by the junction of two ridges of hills; and a sheet of +sand, "pure as that of the sea-shore," and which slopes in an angle of +forty degrees, reclines against it from base to summit. As represented +in the lithograph, there projects over the steep sandy slope on each +side, as in the "Mountain of the Bell," still steeper barriers of rock; +and we are told by Sir Alexander, that though "the mountains here are +generally composed of granite or mica, at _Reg-Rawan_ there is sandstone +and lime." The situation of the sand is curious, he adds: it is seen +from a great distance; and as there is none other in the neighborhood, +"it might almost be imagined, from its appearance, that the hill had +been cut in two, and that the sand had gushed forth as from a sand-bag." +"When set in motion by a body of people who slide down it, a sound is +emitted. On the first trial we distinctly heard two loud hollow sounds, +such as would be given by a large drum;"--"there is an echo in the +place; and the inhabitants have a belief that the sounds are only heard +on Friday, when the saint of _Reg-Rawan_, who is interred hard by, +permits." The phenomenon, like the resembling one in Arabia, seems to +have attracted attention among the inhabitants of the country at an +early period; and the notice of an eastern annalist, the Emperor Baber, +who flourished late in the fifteenth century, and, like Caesar, conquered +and recorded his conquests, still survives. He describes it as the +_Khwaja Reg-Rawan_, "a small hill, in which there is a line of sandy +ground reaching from the top to the bottom," from which there "issues in +the summer season the sound of drums and nagarets." In connection with +the fact that the musical sand of Eigg is composed of a disintegrated +sandstone of the Oolite, it is not quite unworthy of notice that +sandstone and lime enter into the composition of the hill of +_Reg-Rawan_,--that the district in which the hill is situated is not a +sandy one,--and that its slope of sonorous sand seems as if it had +issued from its side. These various circumstances, taken together, lead +to the inference that the sand may have originated in the decomposition +of the rock beneath. It is further noticeable, that the _Jabel Nakous_ +is composed of a white friable sandstone, resembling that of the white +friable bed of the Bay of Laig, and that it belongs to nearly the same +geological era. I owe to the kindness of Dr. Wilson of Bombay, two +specimens which he picked up in Arabia Petraea, of spines of Cidarites of +the mace-formed type so common in the Chalk and Oolite, but so rare in +the older formations. Dr. Wilson informs me that they are of frequent +occurrence in the desert of Arabia Petraea, where they are termed by the +Arabs petrified olives; that nummulites are also abundant in the +district; and that the various secondary rocks he examined in his route +through it seem to belong to the Cretaceous group. It appears not +improbable, therefore, that all the sonorous sand in the world yet +discovered is formed, like that of Eigg, of disintegrated sandstone; and +at least two-thirds of it of the disintegrated sandstone of secondary +formations, newer than the Lias. But how it should be at all sonorous, +whatever its age or origin, seems yet to be discovered. There are few +substances that appear worse suited than sand to communicate to the +atmosphere those vibratory undulations that are the producing causes of +sound: the grains, even when sonorous individually, seem, from their +inevitable contact with each other, to exist under the influence of that +simple law in acoustics which arrests the tones of the ringing glass or +struck bell, immediately as they are but touched by some foreign body, +such as the hand or finger. The one grain, ever in contact with several +other grains, is a glass or bell on which the hand always rests. And the +difficulty has been felt and acknowledged. Sir John Herschel, in +referring to the phenomenon of the _Jabel Nakous_, in his "Treatise on +Sound," in the "Encyclopaedia Metropolitana," describes it as to him +"utterly inexplicable;" and Sir David Brewster, whom I had the pleasure +of meeting in December last, assured me it was not less a puzzle to him +than to Sir John. An eastern traveller, who attributes its production +to "a reduplication of impulse setting air in vibration in a focus of +echo," means, I suppose, saying nearly the same thing as the two +philosophers, and merely conveys his meaning in a less simple style. + +I have not yet procured what I expect to procure soon,--sand enough from +the musical bay at Laig to enable me to make its sonorous qualities the +subject of experiment at home. It seems doubtful whether a small +quantity set in motion on an artificial slope will serve to evolve the +phenomena which have rendered the Mountain of the Bell so famous. +Lieutenant Welsted informs us, that when his Bedouin first set the sand +in motion, there was scarce any perceptible sound heard;--it was rolling +downwards for many yards around him to the depth of a foot, ere the +music arose; and it is questionable whether the effect could be elicited +with some fifty or sixty pounds weight of the sand of Eigg, on a slope +of but at most a few feet, which it took many hundred weight of sand of +_Jabel Nakous_, and a slope of many yards, to produce. But in the +stillness of a close room, it is just possible that it may. I have, +however, little doubt, that from small quantities the sound evoked by +the foot on the shore may be reproduced: enough will lie within the +reach of experiment to demonstrate the strange difference which exists +between this sonorous sand of the Oolite, and the common unsonorous sand +of our sea-beaches; and it is certainly worth while examining into the +nature and producing causes of a phenomenon so curious in itself, and +which has been characterized by one of the most distinguished of living +philosophers as "the most celebrated of all the acoustic wonders which +the natural world presents to us." In the forthcoming number of the +"North British Review,"--which appears on Monday first,[1]--the reader +will find the sonorous sand of Eigg referred to, in an article the +authorship of which will scarcely be mistaken. "We have here," says the +writer, after first describing the sounds of _Jabel Nakous_, and then +referring to those of Eigg, "the phenomenon in its simple state, +disembarrassed from reflecting rocks, from a hard bed beneath, and from +cracks and cavities that might be supposed to admit the sand; and +indicating as its cause, either the accumulated vibration of the air +when struck by the driven sand, or the accumulated sounds occasioned by +the mutual impact of the particles of sand against each other. If a +musket-ball passing through the air emits a whistling note, each +individual particle of sand must do the same, however faint be the note +which it yields; and the accumulation of these infinitesimal vibrations +must constitute an audible sound, varying with the number and velocity +of moving particles. In like manner, if two plates of silex or quartz, +which are but large crystals of sand, give out a musical sound when +mutually struck, the impact or collision of two minute crystals or +particles of sand must do the same, in however inferior a degree; and +the union of all these sounds, though singly imperceptible, may +constitute the musical notes of the Bell Mountain, or the lesser sounds +of the trodden sea-beach at Eigg." + +Here is a vigorous effort made to unlock the difficulty. I should, +however, have mentioned to the philosophic writer,--what I inadvertently +failed to do,--that the sounds elicited from the sand of Eigg seem as +directly evoked by the slant blow dealt it by the foot, as the sounds +similarly evoked from a highly waxed floor, or a board strewed over with +ground rosin. The sharp shrill note follows the stroke, altogether +independently of the grains driven into the air. My omission may serve +to show how much safer it is for those minds of the observant order, +that serve as hands and eyes to the reflective ones, to prefer incurring +the risk of being even tediously minute in their descriptions, to the +danger of being inadequately brief in them. But, alas! for purposes of +exact science, rarely are verbal descriptions otherwise than inadequate. +Let us look, for example, at the various accounts given us of _Jabel +Nakous_. There are strange sounds heard proceeding from a hill in +Arabia, and various travellers set themselves to describe them. The +tones are those of the convent _Nakous_, says the wild Arab;--there must +be a convent buried under the hill. More like the sounds of a +humming-top, remarks a phlegmatic German traveller. Not quite like them, +says an English one in an Oxford gown;--they resemble rather the +striking of a clock. Nay, listen just a little longer and more +carefully, says a second Englishman, with epaulettes on his shoulder: +"the sounds at their commencement may be compared to the faint strains +of an Aeolian harp when its strings first catch the breeze," but anon, as +the agitation of the sand increases, they "more nearly resemble those +produced by drawing the moistened fingers over glass." Not at all, +exclaims the warlike Zahor Ed-din Muhammed Baber, twirling his whiskers: +"I know a similar hill in the country towards Hindu-kush: it is the +sound of drums and nagarets that issues from the sand." All we really +know of this often-described music of the desert, after reading all the +descriptions, is, that its tones bear certain analogies to certain other +tones,--analogies that seem stronger in one direction to one ear, and +stronger in another direction to an ear differently constituted, but +which do not exactly resemble any other sounds in nature. The strange +music of _Jabel Nakous_, as a combination of tones, is essentially +unique. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + Trap-Dykes--"Cotton Apples"--Alternation of Lacustrine with Marine + Remains--Analogy from the Beds of Esk--Aspect of the Island on its + narrow Front--The Puffin--Ru-Stoir--Development of Old Red + Sandstone--Striking Columnar character of Ru-Stoir--Discovery of + Reptilian Remains--John Stewart's wonder at the Bones in the + Stones--Description of the Bones--"Dragons, Gorgons, and + Chimeras"--Exploration and Discovery pursued--The Midway + Shieling--A Celtic Welcome--Return of the Yacht--"Array of Fossils + new to Scotch Geology"--A Geologist's Toast--Hoffman and his + Fossil. + + +We leave behind us the musical sand, and reach the point of the +promontory which forms the northern extremity of the Bay of Laig. +Wherever the beach has been swept bare, we see it floored with +trap-dykes worn down to the level, but in most places accumulations of +huge blocks of various composition cover it up, concealing the nature of +the rock beneath. The long semi-circular wall of precipice which, +sweeping inwards at the bottom of the bay, leaves to the inhabitants +between its base and the beach their fertile meniscus of land, here +abuts upon the coast. We see its dark forehead many hundred feet +overhead, and the grassy platform beneath, now narrowed to a mere talus, +sweeping upwards to its base from the shore,--steep, broken, lined thick +with horizontal pathways, mottled over with ponderous masses of rock. + +Among the blocks that load the beach, and render our onward progress +difficult and laborious, we detect occasional fragments of an +amygdaloidal basalt, charged with a white zeolite, consisting of +crystals so extremely slender that the balls, with their light fibrous +contents, remind us of cotton apples divested of the seeds. There +occur, though more rarely, masses of a hard white sandstone, abounding +in vegetable impressions, which, from their sculptured markings, +recalled to memory the Sigillaria of the Coal Measures. Here and there, +too, we find fragments of a calcareous stone, so largely charged with +compressed shells, chiefly bivalves, that it may be regarded as a shell +breccia. There occur, besides, slabs of fibrous limestone, exactly +resembling the limestone of the ichthyolite beds of the Lower Old Red; +and blocks of a hard gray stone, of silky lustre in the fresh fracture, +thickly speckled with carbonaceous markings. These fragmentary +masses,--all of them, at least, except the fibrous limestone, which +occurs in mere plank-like bands,--represent distinct beds, of which this +part of the island is composed, and which present their edges, like +courses of ashlar in a building, in the splendid section that stretches +from the tall brow of the precipice to the beach; though in the slopes +of the talus, where the lower beds appear in but occasional protrusions +and land-slips, we find some difficulty in tracing their order of +succession. + +Near the base of the slope, where the soil has been undermined and the +rock laid bare by the waves, there occur beds of a bituminous black +shale,--resembling the dark shales so common in the Coal Measures,--that +seem to be of fresh water or estuary origin. Their fossils, though +numerous, are ill preserved; but we detect in them scales and plates of +fishes, at least two species of minute bivalves, one of which very much +resembles a Cyclas; and in some of the fragments, shells of Cypris lie +embedded in considerable abundance. After all that has been said and +written by way of accounting for those alternations of lacustrine with +marine remains, which are of such frequent occurrence in the various +formations, secondary and tertiary, from the Coal Measures downwards, it +does seem strange enough that the estuary, or fresh-water lake, should +so often in the old geologic periods have changed places with the sea. +It is comparatively easy to conceive that the inner Hebrides should have +once existed as a broad ocean sound, bounded on one or either side by +Oolitic islands, from which streams descended, sweeping with them, to +the marine depths, productions, animal and vegetable, of the land. But +it is less easy to conceive, that in that sound, the area covered by the +ocean one year should have been covered by a fresh-water lake in perhaps +the next, and then by the ocean again a few years after. And yet among +the Oolitic deposits of the Hebrides evidence seems to exist that +changes of this nature actually took place. I am not inclined to found +much on the apparently fresh-water character of the bituminous shales of +Eigg;--the embedded fossils are all too obscure to be admitted in +evidence; but there can exist no doubt that fresh water, or at least +estuary formations, do occur among the marine Oolites of the Hebrides. +Sir R. Murchison, one of the most cautious, as he is certainly one of +the most distinguished, of living geologists, found in a northern +district of Skye, in 1826, a deposit containing Cyclas, Paludina, +Neritina,--all shells of unequivocally fresh-water origin,--which must +have been formed, he concludes, in either a lake or estuary. What had +been sea at one period had been estuary or lake at another. In every +case, however, in which these intercalated deposits are restricted to +single strata of no great thickness, it is perhaps safer to refer their +formation to the agency of temporary land-floods, than to that of +violent changes of level, now elevating and now depressing the surface. +There occur, for instance, among the marine Oolites of Brora,--the +discovery of Mr. Robertson, of Inverugie,--two strata containing +fresh-water fossils in abundance; but the one stratum is little more +than an inch in thickness,--the other little more than a foot; and it +seems considerably more probable, that such deposits should have owed +their existence to extraordinary land-floods, like those which in 1829 +devastated the province of Moray, and covered over whole miles of marine +beach with the spoils of land and river, than that a sea-bottom should +have been elevated for their production, into a fresh-water lake, and +then let down into a sea-bottom again. We find it recorded in the +"Shepherd's Calendar," that after the thaw which followed the great +snow-storm of 1794, there were found on a part of the sands of the +Solway Frith known as the Beds of Esk, where the tide disgorges much of +what is thrown into it by the rivers, "one thousand eight hundred and +forty sheep, nine black cattle, three horses, two men, one woman, +forty-five dogs, and one hundred and eighty hares, beside a number of +meaner animals." A similar storm in an earlier time, with a soft +sea-bottom prepared to receive and retain its spoils, would have formed +a fresh-water stratum intercalated in a marine deposit. + +Rounding the promontory, we lose sight of the Bay of Laig, and find the +narrow front of the island that now presents itself exhibiting the +appearance of a huge bastion. The green talus slopes upwards, as its +basement, for full three hundred feet; and a noble wall of perpendicular +rock, that towers over and beyond for at least four hundred feet more, +forms the rampart. Save towards the sea, the view is of but limited +extent; we see it restricted, on the landward side, to the bold face of +the bastion; and in a narrow and broken dell that runs nearly parallel +to the shore for a few hundred yards between the top of the talus and +the base of the rampart,--a true covered way,--we see but the rampart +alone. But the dizzy front of black basalt, dark as night, save where a +broad belt of light-colored sandstone traverses it in an angular +direction, like a white sash thrown across a funeral robe,--the +fantastic peaks and turrets in which the rock terminates atop,--the +masses of broken ruins, roughened with moss and lichen, that have fallen +from above, and lie scattered at its base,--the extreme loneliness of +the place, for we have left behind us every trace of the human +family,--and the expanse of solitary sea which it commands,--all +conspire to render the scene a profoundly imposing one. It is one of +those scenes in which a man feels that he is little, and that nature is +great. There is no precipice in the island in which the puffin so +delights to build as among the dark pinnacles overhead, or around which +the silence is so frequently broken by the harsh scream of the eagle. +The sun had got far adown the sky ere we had reached the covered way at +the base of the rock. All lay dark below; and the red light atop, half +absorbed by the dingy hues of the stone, shone with a gleam so faint and +melancholy, that it served but to deepen the effect of the shadows. + +The puffin, a comparatively rare bird in the inner Hebrides, builds, I +was told, in great numbers in the continuous line of precipice which, +after sweeping for a full mile round the Bay of Laig, forms the +pinnacled rampart here, and then, turning another angle of the island, +runs on parallel to the coast for about six miles more. In former times +the puffin furnished the islanders, as in St. Kilda, with a staple +article of food, in those hungry months of summer in which the stores of +the old crop had begun to fail, and the new crop had not yet ripened; +and the people of Eigg, taught by their necessities, were bold cragsmen. +But men do not peril life and limb for the mere sake of a meal, save +when they cannot help it; and the introduction of the potato has done +much to put out the practice of climbing for the bird, except among a +few young lads, who find excitement enough in the work to pursue it for +its own sake, as an amusement. I found among the islanders what was +said to be a piece of the natural history of the puffin, sufficiently +apocryphal to remind one of the famous passage in the history of the +barnacle, which traced the lineage of the bird to one of the +pedunculated cirripedes, and the lineage of the cirripede to a log of +wood. The puffin feeds its young, say the islanders, on an oily scum of +the sea, which renders it such an unwieldy mass of fat, that about the +time when it should be beginning to fly, it becomes unable to get out of +its hole. The parent bird, not in the least puzzled, however, treats the +case medicinally, and,--like mothers of another two-legged genus, who, +when their daughters get over stout, put them through a course of +reducing acids to bring them down,--feeds it on sorrel leaves for +several days together, till, like a boxer under training, it gets +thinned to the proper weight, and becomes able, not only to get out of +its cell, but also to employ its wings. + +We pass through the hollow, and, reaching the farther edge of the +bastion, towards the east, see a new range of prospect opening before +us. There is first a long unbroken wall of precipice,--a continuation of +the tall rampart overhead,--relieved along its irregular upper line by +the blue sky. We mark the talus widening at its base, and expanding, as +on the shores of the Bay of Laig, into an irregular grassy platform, +that, sinking midway into a ditch-like hollow, rises again towards the +sea, and presents to the waves a perpendicular precipice of redstone. +The sinking sun shone brightly this evening; and the warm hues of the +precipice, which bears the name of _Ru-Stoir_,--the Red +Head,--strikingly contrasted with the pale and dark tints of the +alternating basalts and sandstones in the taller cliff behind. The +ditch-like hollow, which seems to indicate the line of a fault, cuts off +this red headland from all the other rocks of the island, from which it +appears to differ as considerably in texture as in hue. It consists +mainly of thick beds of a pale red stone, which M'Culloch regarded as a +trap, and which, intercalated with here and there a thin band of shale, +and presenting not a few of the mineralogical appearances of what +geologists of the school of the late Mr. Cunningham term Primary Old Red +Sandstone, in some cases has been laid down as a deposit of Old Red +proper, abutting in the line of a fault on the neighboring Oolites and +basalts. In the geological map which I carried with me,--not one of high +authority however,--I found it actually colored as a patch of this +ancient system. The Old Red Sandstone is largely developed in the +neighboring island of Rum, in the line of which the _Ru-Stoir_ seems to +have a more direct bearing than any of the other deposits of Eigg; and +yet the conclusion regarding this red headland merely adds one proof +more to the many furnished already, of the inadequacy of mineralogical +testimony, when taken in evidence regarding the eras of the geologist. +The hard red beds of _Ru-Stoir_ belong, as I was fortunate enough this +evening to ascertain, not to the ages of the Coccosteus and Pterichthys, +but to the far later ages of the Plesiosaurus and the fossil crocodile. +I found them associated with more reptilian remains, of a character more +unequivocal than have been yet exhibited by any other deposit in +Scotland. + +What first strikes the eye, in approaching the _Ru-Stoir_ from the west, +is the columnar character of the stone. The precipices rise immediately +over the sea, in rude colonnades of from thirty to fifty feet in height; +single pillars, that have fallen from their places in the line, and +exhibit a tenacity rare among the trap-rocks,--for they occur in +unbroken lengths of from ten to twelve feet,--lie scattered below; and +in several places where the waves have joined issue with the precipices +in the line on which the base of the columns rest, and swept away the +supporting foundation, the colonnades open into roomy caverns, that +resound to the dash of the sea. Wherever the spray lashes, the pale red +hue of the stone prevails, and the angles of the polygonal shafts are +rounded; while higher up all is sharp-edged, and the unweathered surface +is covered by a gray coat of lichens. The tenacity of the prostrate +columns first drew my attention. The builder scant of materials would +have experienced no difficulty in finding among them sufficient lintels +for apertures from eight to twelve feet in width. I was next struck with +the peculiar composition of the stone; it much rather resembles an +altered sandstone, in at least the weathered specimens, than a trap, and +yet there seemed nothing to indicate that it was an _Old Red_ Sandstone. +Its columnar structure bore evidence to the action of great heat; and +its pale red color was exactly that which the Oolitic sandstones of the +island, with their slight ochreous tinge, would assume in a common fire. +And so I set myself to look for fossils. In the columnar stone itself I +expected none, as none occur in vast beds of the unaltered sandstones, +out of some one of which I supposed it might possibly have been formed; +and none I found: but in a rolled block of altered shale of a much +deeper red than the general mass, and much more resembling Old Red +Sandstone, I succeeded in detecting several shells, identical with those +of the deposit of blue clay described in a former chapter. There +occurred in it the small univalve resembling a Trochus, together with +the oblong bivalve, somewhat like a Tellina; and, spread thickly +throughout the block, lay fragments of coprolitic matter, and the scales +and teeth of fishes. Night was coming on, and the tide had risen on the +beach; but I hammered lustily, and laid open in the dark red shale a +vertebral joint, a rib, and a parallelogramical fragment of solid bone, +none of which could have belonged to any fish. It was an interesting +moment for the curtain to drop over the promontory of _Ru-Stoir_; I had +thus already found in connection with it well nigh as many reptilian +remains as had been found in all Scotland before,--for there could exist +no doubt that the bones I laid open were such; and still more +interesting discoveries promised to await the coming morning, and a less +hasty survey. We found a hospitable meal awaiting us at a picturesque +old two-story house, with, what is rare in the island, a clump of trees +beside it, which rises on the northern angle of the Oolitic meniscus; +and after our day's hard work in the fresh sea-air, we did ample justice +to the viands. Dark night had long set in ere we reached our vessel. + +Next day was Saturday; and it behooved my friend, the minister,--as +scrupulously careful in his pulpit preparations for the islanders of +Eigg as if his congregation were an Edinburgh one,--to remain on board, +and study his discourse for the morrow. I found, however, no unmeet +companion for my excursion in his trusty mate John Stewart. John had not +very much English, and I had no Gaelic; but we contrived to understand +one another wonderfully well; and ere evening I had taught him to be +quite as expert in hunting dead crocodiles as myself. We reached the +_Ru-Stoir_, and set hard to work with hammer and chisel. The fragments +of red shale were strewed thickly along the shore for at least three +quarters of a mile; wherever the red columnar rock appeared, there lay +the shale, in water-worn blocks, more or less indurated; but the beach +was covered over with shingle and detached masses of rock, and we could +nowhere find it _in situ_. A winter storm powerful enough to wash the +beach bare might do much to assist the explorer. There is a piece of +shore on the eastern coast of Scotland, on which for years together I +used to pick up nodular masses of lime containing fish of the Old Red +Sandstone; but nowhere in the neighborhood could I find the ichthyolite +bed in which they had originally formed. The storm of a single night +swept the beach; and in the morning the ichthyolites lay revealed _in +situ_ under a stratum of shingle which I had a hundred times examined, +but which, though scarce a foot in thickness, had concealed from me the +ichthyolite bed for five twelvemonths together! + +Wherever the altered shale of _Ru-Stoir_ has been thrown high on the +beach, and exposed to the influences of the weather, we find it fretted +over with minute organisms, mostly the scales, plates, bones, and teeth +of fishes. The organisms, as is frequently the case, seem +indestructible, while the hard matrix in which they are embedded has +weathered from around them. Some of the scales present the rhomboidal +outline, and closely resemble those of the _Lepidotus Minor_ of the +Weald; others approximate in shape to an isosceles triangle. The teeth +are of various forms: some of them, evidently palatal, are mere blunted +protuberances glittering with enamel,--some of them present the usual +slim, thorn-like type common in the teeth of the existing fish of our +coasts,--some again are squat and angular, and rest on rectilinear +bases, prolonged considerably on each side of the body of the tooth, +like the rim of a hat or the flat head of a scupper nail. Of the +occipital plates, some present a smooth enamelled surface, while some +are thickly tuberculated,--each tubercle bearing a minute depression in +its apex, like a crater on the summit of a rounded hill. We find +reptilian bones in abundance,--a thing new to Scotch geology,--and in a +state of keeping peculiarly fine. They not a little puzzled John +Stewart: he could not resist the evidence of his senses: they were +bones, he said, real bones,--there could be no doubt of that: _there_ +were the joints of a backbone, with the hole the brain-marrow had +passed through; and _there_ were shank-bones and ribs, and fishes' +teeth; but how, he wondered, had they all got into the very heart of the +hard red stones? He had seen what was called wood, he said, dug out of +the side of the Scuir, without being quite certain whether it was wood +or no; but there could be no uncertainty here. I laid open numerous +vertebrae of various forms,--some with long spinous processes rising over +the body or _centrum_ of the bone,--which I found in every instance, +unlike that of the Ichthyosaurus, only moderately concave on the +articulating faces; in others the spinous process seemed altogether +wanting. Only two of the number bore any mark of the suture which +unites, in most reptiles, the annular process to the centrum; in the +others both centrum and process seemed anchylosed, as in quadrupeds, +into one bone; and there remained no scar to show that the suture had +ever existed. In some specimens the ribs seem to have been articulated +to the sides of the centrum; in others there is a transverse process, +but no marks of articulation. Some of the vertebrae are evidently dorsal, +some cervical, one apparently caudal; and almost all agree in showing in +front two little eyelets, to which the great descending artery seems to +have sent out blood-vessels in pairs. The more entire ribs I was lucky +enough to disinter have, as in those of crocodileans, double heads; and +a part of a fibula, about four inches in length, seems also to belong to +this ancient family. A large proportion of the other bones are evidently +Plesiosaurian. I found the head of the flat humerus so characteristic of +the extinct order to which the Plesiosaurus has been assigned, and two +digital bones of the paddle, that, from their comparatively slender and +slightly curved form, so unlike the digitals of its cogener the +Ichthyosaurus, could have belonged evidently to no other reptile. I +observed, too, in the slightly curved articulations of not a few of the +vertebrae, the gentle convexity in the concave centre, which, if not +peculiar to the Plesiosaurus, is at least held to distinguish it from +most of its contemporaries. Among the various nondescript organisms of +the shale, I laid open a smooth angular bone, hollowed something like a +grocer's scoop; a three-pronged caltrop-looking bone, that seems to have +formed part of a pelvic arch; another angular bone, much massier than +the first, regarding the probable position of which I could not form a +conjecture, but which some of my geological friends deem cerebral; an +extremely dense bone, imperfect at each end, which presents the +appearance of a cylinder slightly flattened; and various curious +fragments, which, with what our Scotch museums have not yet +acquired,--entire reptilian fossils for the purposes of +comparison,--might, I doubt not, be easily assigned to their proper +places. It was in vain that, leaving John to collect the scattered +pieces of shale in which the bones occurred, I set myself again and +again to discover the bed from which they had been detached. The tide +had fallen, and a range of skerries lay temptingly off, scarce a hundred +yards from the water's edge: the shale beds might be among them, with +Plesiosauri and crocodiles stretching entire; and fain would I have swum +off to them, as I had done oftener than once elsewhere, with my hammer +in my teeth, and with shirt and drawers in my hat; but a tall brown +forest of kelp and tangle in which even a seal might drown, rose thick +and perilous round both shore and skerries; a slight swell was felting +the long fronds together; and I deemed it better, on the whole, that the +discoveries I had already made should be recorded, than that they should +be lost to geology, mayhap for a whole age, in the attempt to extend +them. + +The water, beautifully transparent, permitted the eye to penetrate into +its green depths for many fathoms around, though every object +presented, through the agitated surface, an uncertain and fluctuating +outline. I could see, however, the pink-colored urchin warping himself +up, by his many cables, along the steep rock-sides; the green crab +stalking along the gravelly bottom; a scull of small rock-cod darting +hither and thither among the tangle-roots; and a few large medusae slowly +flapping their continuous fins of gelatine in the opener spaces, a few +inches under the surface. Many curious families had their +representatives within the patch of sea which the eye commanded; but the +strange creatures that had once inhabited it by thousands, and whose +bones still lay sepulchred on its shores, had none. How strange, that +the identical sea heaving around stack and skerry in this remote corner +of the Hebrides should have once been thronged by reptile shapes more +strange than poet ever imagined,--dragons, gorgons and chimeras! Perhaps +of all the extinct reptiles, the Plesiosaurus was the most +extraordinary. An English geologist has described it, grotesquely +enough, and yet most happily, as a snake _threaded_ through a tortoise. +And here on this very spot, must these monstrous dragons have disported +and fed; here must they have raised their little reptile heads and long +swan-like necks over the surface, to watch an antagonist or select a +victim; here must they have warred and wedded, and pursued all the +various instincts of their unknown natures. A strange story, surely, +considering it is a true one! I may mention in the passing, that some of +the fragments of the shale in which the remains are embedded have been +baked by the intense heat into an exceedingly hard, dark-colored stone, +somewhat resembling basalt. I must add further, that I by no means +determine the rock with which we find it associated to be in reality an +altered sandstone. Such is the appearance which it presents where +weathered; but its general aspect is that of a porphyritic trap. Be it +what it may, the fact is not at all affected, that the shores, wherever +it occurs on this tract of insular coast, are strewed with reptilian +remains of the Oolite. + +The day passed pleasantly in the work of exploration and discovery; the +sun had already declined far in the west; and, bearing with us our +better fossils, we set out, on our return, by the opposite route to that +along the Bay of Laig, which we had now thrice walked over. The grassy +talus so often mentioned continues to run on the eastern side of the +island for about six miles, between the sea and the inaccessible rampart +of precipice behind. It varies in breadth from about two to four hundred +yards; the rampart rises over it from three to five hundred feet; and a +noble expanse of sea, closed in the distance by a still nobler curtain +of blue hills, spreads away from its base: and it was along this grassy +talus that our homeward road lay. Let the Edinburgh reader imagine the +fine walk under Salisbury Crags lengthened some twenty times,--the line +of precipices above heightened some five or six times,--the gravelly +slope at the base not much increased in altitude, but developed +transversely into a green undulating belt of hilly pasture, with here +and there a sunny slope level enough for the plough, and here and there +a rough wilderness of detached crags and broken banks; let him further +imagine the sea sweeping around the base of this talus, with the nearest +opposite land--bold, bare and undulating atop--some six or eight miles +distant; and he will have no very inadequate idea of the peculiar and +striking scenery through which, this evening, our homeward route lay. I +have scarce ever walked over a more solitary tract. The sea shuts it in +on the one hand, and the rampart of rocks on the other; there occurs +along its entire length no other human dwelling than a lonely summer +shieling; for full one-half the way we saw no trace of man; and the +wildness of the few cattle which we occasionally startled in the +hollows showed us that man was no very frequent visitor among them. +About half an hour before sunset we reached the midway shieling. + +Rarely have I seen a more interesting spot, or one that, from its utter +loneliness, so impressed the imagination. The shieling, a rude +low-roofed erection of turf and stone, with a door in the centre some +five feet in height or so, but with no window, rose on the grassy slope +immediately in front of the vast continuous rampart. A slim pillar of +smoke ascends from the roof, in the calm, faint and blue within the +shadow of the precipice, but it caught the sunlight in its ascent, and +blushed, ere it melted into the ether, a ruddy brown. A streamlet came +pouring from above in a long white thread, that maintained its +continuity unbroken for at least two-thirds of the way; and then, +untwisting into a shower of detached drops, that pattered loud and +vehemently in a rocky recess, it again gathered itself up into a lively +little stream, and, sweeping past the shieling, expanded in front into a +circular pond, at which a few milch cows were leisurely slaking their +thirst. The whole grassy talus, with a strip mayhap a hundred yards +wide, of deep green sea, lay within the shadow of the tall rampart; but +the red light fell, for many a mile beyond, on the glassy surface; and +the distant Cuchullin Hills, so dark at other times, had all their +prominent slopes and jutting precipices tipped with bronze; while here +and there a mist streak, converted into bright flame, stretched along +their peaks or rested on their sides. Save the lonely shieling, not a +human dwelling was in sight. An island girl of eighteen, more than +merely good-looking, though much embrowned by the sun, had come to the +door to see who the unwonted visitors might be, and recognized in John +Stewart an old acquaintance. John informed her in her own language that +I was Mr. Swanson's sworn friend, and not a _Moderate_, but one of their +own people, and that I had fasted all day, and had come for a drink of +milk. The name of her minister proved a strongly recommendatory one: I +have not yet seen the true Celtic interjection of welcome,--the kindly +"O o o,"--attempted on paper; but I had a very agreeable specimen of it +on this occasion, _viva voce_. And as she set herself to prepare for us +a rich bowl of mingled milk and cream, John and I entered the shieling. +There was a turf fire at the one end, at which there sat two little +girls, engaged in keeping up the blaze under a large pot, but sadly +diverted from their work by our entrance; while the other end was +occupied by a bed of dry straw, spread on the floor from wall to wall, +and fenced off at the foot by a line of stones. The middle space was +occupied by the utensils and produce of the dairy,--flat wooden vessels +of milk, a butter-churn, and a tub half-filled with curd; while a few +cheeses, soft from the press, lay on a shelf above. The little girls +were but occasional visitors, who had come, out of a juvenile frolic, to +pass the night in the place; but I was informed by John that the +shieling had two other inmates, young women, like the one so hospitably +engaged in our behalf, who were out at the milking, and that they lived +here all alone for several months every year, when the pasturage was at +its best, employed in making butter and cheese for their master, worthy +Mr. M'Donald of Keill. They must often feel lonely when night has closed +darkly over mountain and sea, or in those dreary days of mist and rain +so common in the Hebrides, when nought may be seen save the few +shapeless crags that stud the nearer hillocks around them, and nought +heard save the moaning of the wind in the precipices above, or the +measured dash of the wave on the wild beach below. And yet they would do +ill to exchange their solitary life and rude shieling for the village +dwellings and gregarious habits of the females who ply their rural +labors in bands among the rich fields of the Lowlands, or for the +unwholesome backroom and weary task-work of the city seamstress. The +sunlight was fading from the higher hill-tops of Skye and Glenelg as we +bade farewell to the lonely shieling and the hospitable island girl. + +The evening deepened as we hurried southwards along the scarce visible +pathway, or paused for a few seconds to examine some shattered block, +bulky as a Highland cottage, that had fallen from the precipice above. +Now that the whole landscape lay equally in shadow, one of the more +picturesque peculiarities of the continuous rampart came out more +strongly as a feature of the scene than when a strip of shade rested +along the face of the rock, imparting to it a retiring character, and +all was sunshine beyond. A thick bed of white sandstone, as continuous +as the rampart itself, runs nearly horizontally about midway in the +precipice for mile after mile, and, standing out in strong contrast with +the dark-colored trap above and below, reminds one of a belt of white +hewn work in a basalt house front, or rather,--for there occurs above a +second continuous strip, of an olive hue, the color assumed, on +weathering by a bed of amygdaloid,--of a piece of dingy old-fashioned +furniture, inlaid with one stringed belt of bleached holly, and another +of faded green-wood. At some of the more accessible points I climbed to +the line of white belting, and found it to consist of the same soft +quartzy sandstone that in the Bay of Laig furnishes the musical sand. +Lower down there occur, alternating with the trap, beds of shale and of +blue clay, but they are lost mostly in the talus. Ill adapted to resist +the frosts and rains of winter, their exposed edges have mouldered into +a loose soil, now thickly covered over with herbage; and, but for the +circumstance that we occasionally find them laid bare by a water-course, +we would scarce be aware of their existence at all. The shale exhibits +everywhere, as on the opposite side of the _Ru-Stoir_, faint +impressions of a minute shell resembling a Cyclas, and ill-preserved +fragments of fish-scales. The blue clay I found at one spot where the +pathway had cut deep into the hill-side, richly charged with bivalves of +the species I had seen so abundant in the resembling clay of the Bay of +Laig; but the closing twilight prevented me from ascertaining whether it +also contained the characteristic univalves of the deposit, and whether +its shells,--for they seem identical with those of the altered shales of +the _Ru-Stoir_,--might not be associated, like these, with reptilian +remains. Night fell fast, and the streaks of mist that had mottled the +hills at sunset began to spread gray over the heavens in a continuous +curtain; but there was light enough left to show me that the trap became +more columnar as we neared our journey's end. One especial jutting in +the rock presented in the gloom the appearance of an ancient portico, +with pediment and cornice, such as the traveller sees on the hill-sides +of Petraea in front of some old tomb; but it may possibly appear less +architectural by day. At length, passing from under the long line of +rampart, just as the stars that had begun to twinkle over it were +disappearing, one after one, in the thickening vapor, we reached the +little bay of Kildonan, and found the boat waiting us on the beach. My +friend the minister, as I entered the cabin, gathered up his notes from +the table, and gave orders for the tea-kettle; and I spread out before +him--a happy man--an array of fossils new to Scotch Geology. No one not +an enthusiastic geologist or a zealous Roman Catholic can really know +how vast an amount of interest may attach to a few old bones. Has the +reader ever heard how fossil relics once saved the dwelling of a monk, +in a time of great general calamity, when all his other relics proved of +no avail whatever? + +Thomas Campbell, when asked for a toast in a society of authors, gave +the memory of Napoleon Bonaparte; significantly adding, "he once hung a +bookseller." On a nearly similar principle I would be disposed to +propose among geologists a grateful bumper in honor of the revolutionary +army that besieged Maestricht. That city, some seventy-five or eighty +years ago, had its zealous naturalist in the person of M. Hoffmann, a +diligent excavator in the quarries of St. Peter's mountain, long +celebrated for its extraordinary fossils. Geology, as a science, had no +existence at the time; but Hoffmann was doing, in a quiet way, all he +could to give it a beginning;--he was transferring from the rock to his +cabinet, shells, and corals, and crustacea, and the teeth and scales of +fishes, with now and then the vertebrae, and now and then the limb-bone, +of a reptile. And as he honestly remunerated all the workmen he +employed, and did no manner of harm to any one, no one heeded him. On +one eventful morning, however, his friends the quarriers laid bare a +most extraordinary fossil,--the occipital plates of an enormous saurian, +with jaws four and a half feet long, bristling over with teeth, like +_chevaux de frise_; and after Hoffmann, who got the block in which it +lay embedded, cut out entire, and transferred to his house, had spent +week after week in painfully relieving it from the mass, all Maestricht +began to speak of it as something really wonderful. There is a cathedral +on St. Peter's mountain,--the mountain itself is church-land; and the +lazy canon, awakened by the general talk, laid claim to poor Hoffmann's +wonderful fossil as _his_ property. He was lord of the manor, he said, +and the mountain and all that it contained belonged to him. Hoffmann +defended his fossil as he best could in an expensive lawsuit; but the +judges found the law clean against him; the huge reptile head was +declared to be "treasure trove" escheat to the lord of the manor; and +Hoffmann, half broken-hearted, with but his labor and the lawyer's bills +for his pains, saw it transferred by rude hands from its place in his +museum, to the residence of the grasping churchman. The huge fossil head +experienced the fate of Dr. Chalmer's two hundred churches. Hoffmann was +a philosopher, however, and he continued to observe and collect as +before; but he never found such another fossil; and at length, in the +midst of his ingenious labors, the vital energies failed within him, and +he broke down and died. The useless canon lived on. The French +Revolution broke out; the republican army invested Maestricht; the +batteries were opened; and shot and shell fell thick on the devoted +city. But in one especial quarter there alighted neither shot nor shell. +All was safe around the canon's house. Ordinary relics would have +availed him nothing in the circumstances,--no, not "the three kings of +Cologne," had he possessed the three kings entire, or the jaw-bones of +the "eleven thousand virgins;" but there was virtue in the jaw-bones of +the Mosasaurus, and safety in their neighborhood. The French _savans_, +like all the other _savans_ of Europe, had heard of Hoffmann's fossil, +and the French artillery had been directed to play wide of the place +where it lay. Maestricht surrendered; the fossil was found secreted in a +vault, and sent away to the _Jardin des Plantes_ at Paris, maugre the +canon, to delight there the heart of Cuvier; and the French, generously +addressing themselves to the heirs of Hoffmann as its legitimate owners, +made over to them a considerable sum of money as its price. They +reversed the finding of the Maestricht judges; and all save the monks of +St. Peter's have acquiesced in the justice of the decision. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + Something for Non-geologists--Man Destructive--A Better and Last + Creation coming--A Rainy Sabbath--The Meeting House--The + Congregation--The Sermon in Gaelic--The Old Wondrous Story--The + Drunken Minister of Eigg--Presbyterianism without Life--Dr. + Johnson's Account of the Conversion of the People of Rum--Romanism + at Eigg--The Two Boys--The Freebooter of Eigg--Voyage Resumed--The + Homeless Minister--Harbor of Isle Ornsay--Interesting Gneiss + Deposit--A Norwegian Keep--Gneiss at Knock--Curious + Chemistry--Sea-cliffs beyond Portsea--The Goblin Luidag--Scenery of + Skye. + + +I reckon among my readers a class of non-geologists, who think my +geological chapters would be less dull if I left out the geology; and +another class of semi-geologists, who say there was decidedly too much +geology in my last. With the present chapter, as there threatens to be +an utter lack of science in the earlier half of it, and very little, if +any, in the latter half, I trust both classes may be in some degree +satisfied. It will bear reference to but the existing system of +things,--assuredly not the last of the consecutive creations,--and to a +species of animal that, save in the celebrated Guadaloupe specimens, has +not yet been found locked up in stone. There have been much of violence +and suffering in the old immature stages of being,--much, from the era +of the Holoptychius, with its sharp murderous teeth and strong armor of +bone, down to that of the cannibal Ichthyosaurus, that bears the broken +remains of its own kind in its bowels,--much, again, from the times of +the crocodile of the Oolite, down to the times of the fossil hyena and +gigantic shark of the Tertiary. Nor, I fear, have matters greatly +improved in that latest-born creation in the series, that recognizes as +its delegated lord the first tenant of earth accountable to his Maker. +But there is a better and a last creation coming, in which man shall +re-appear, not to oppress and devour his fellow-men, and in which there +shall be no such wrongs perpetrated as it is my present purpose to +record,--"new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." +Well sung the Ayrshire ploughman, when musing on the great truth that +the present scene of being "is surely not the last,"--a truth +corroborated since his day by the analogies of a new science,-- + + "The poor, oppressed, honest man, + Had never sure been born, + Had not there been some recompense + To comfort those that mourn." + +It was Sabbath, but the morning rose like a hypochondriac wrapped up in +his night-clothes,--gray in fog, and sad with rain. The higher grounds +of the island lay hid in clouds, far below the level of the central +hollow; and our whole prospect from the deck was limited to the nearer +slopes, dank, brown, and uninhabited, and to the rough black crags that +frown like sentinels over the beach. Now the rime thickened as the rain +pattered more loudly on the deck; and even the nearer stacks and +precipices showed as unsolid and spectral in the cloud as moonlight +shadows thrown on a ground of vapor; anon it cleared up for a few +hundred yards, as the shower lightened; and then there came in view, +partially at least, two objects that spoke of man,--a deserted boat +harbor, formed of loosely piled stone, at the upper extremity of a sandy +bay; and a roofless dwelling beside it, with two ruinous gables rising +over the broken walls. The entire scene suggested the idea of a land +with which man had done for ever;--the vapor-enveloped rocks,--the waste +of ebb-uncovered sand,--the deserted harbor,--the ruinous house,--the +melancholy rain-fretted tides eddying along the strip of brown tangle in +the foreground,--and, dim over all, the thick, slant lines of the +beating shower!--I know not that of themselves they would have furnished +materials enough for a finished picture in the style of Hogarth's "End +of all Things;" but right sure am I that in the hands of Bewick they +would have been grouped into a tasteful and poetic vignette. We set out +for church a little after eleven,--the minister encased in his +ample-skirted storm-jacket of oiled canvas, and protected atop by a +genuine _sou-wester_, of which the broad posterior rim eloped half a +yard down his back; and I closely wrapped up in my gray maud, which +proved, however, a rather indifferent protection against the penetrating +powers of a true Hebridean drizzle. The building in which the +congregation meets is a low dingy cottage of turf and stone, situated +nearly opposite to the manse windows. It had been built by my friend, +previous to the Disruption, at his own expense, for a Gaelic school, and +it now serves as a place of worship for the people. + +We found the congregation already gathered, and that the very bad +morning had failed to lessen their numbers. There were a few of the male +parishioners keeping watch at the door, looking wistfully out through +the fog and rain for their minister; and at his approach nearly twenty +more came issuing from the place,--like carder bees from their nest of +dried grass and moss,--to gather round him, and shake him by the hand. +The islanders of Eigg are an active, middle-sized race, with +well-developed heads, acute intellects, and singularly warm feelings. +And on this occasion at least there could be no possibility of mistake +respecting the feelings with which they regarded their minister. Rarely +have I seen human countenances so eloquently vocal with veneration and +love. The gospel message, which my friend had been the first effectually +to bring home to their hearts,--the palpable fact of his sacrifice for +the sake of the high principles which he has taught,--his own kindly +disposition,--the many services which he has rendered them, for not only +has he been the minister, but also the sole medical man, of the Small +Isles, and the benefit of his practice they have enjoyed, in every +instance, without fee or reward,--his new life of hardship and danger, +maintained for their sakes amid sinking health and great +privation,--their frequent fears for his safety when stormy nights close +over the sea,--and they have seen his little vessel driven from her +anchorage, just as the evening has fallen,--all these are circumstances +that have concurred in giving him a strong hold on their affections. + +The rude turf-building we found full from end to end, and all a-steam +with a particularly wet congregation, some of whom, neither very robust +nor young, had travelled in the soaking drizzle from the farther +extremities of the island. And, judging from the serious attention with +which they listened to the discourse, they must have deemed it full +value for all it cost them. I have never yet seen a congregation more +deeply impressed, or that seemed to follow the preacher more +intelligently; and I was quite sure, though ignorant of the language in +which my friend addressed them, that he preached to them neither heresy +nor nonsense. There was as little of the reverence of externals in the +place as can well be imagined: an uneven earthen floor,--turf-walls on +every side, and a turf-roof above,--two little windows of four panes +a-piece, adown which the rain-drops were coursing thick and fast,--a +pulpit grotesquely rude, that had never employed the bred +carpenter,--and a few ranges of seats of undressed deal, such were the +mere materialisms of this lowly church of the people; and yet here, +notwithstanding, was the living soul of a Christian +community,--understandings convinced of the truth of the gospel, and +hearts softened and impressed by its power. + +My friend, at the conclusion of his discourse, gave a brief digest of +its contents in English, for the benefit of his one Saxon auditor; and I +found, as I had anticipated, that what had so moved the simple islanders +was just the old wondrous story, which, though repeated and re-repeated +times beyond number, from the days of the apostles till now, continues +to be as full of novelty and interest as ever,--"God so loved the world, +that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him +should not perish, but have everlasting life." The great truths which +had affected many of these poor people to tears, were exactly those +which, during the last eighteen hundred years, have been active in +effecting so many moral revolutions in the world, and which must +ultimately triumph over all error and all oppression. On this occasion, +as on many others, I had to regret my want of Gaelic. It was my +misfortune to miss being born to this ancient language, by barely a mile +of ferry. I first saw light on the southern shore of the Frith of +Cromarty, where the strait is narrowest, among an old established +Lowland community, marked by all the characteristics, physical and +mental, of the Lowlanders of the southern districts; whereas, had I been +born on the northern shore, I would have been brought up among a Celtic +tribe, and Gaelic would have been my earliest language. Thus distinct +was the line between the two races preserved, even after the +commencement of the present century. + +In returning to the Betsey during the mid-day interval in the service, +we passed the ruinous two-gabled house beside the boat-harbor. During +the incumbency of my friend's predecessor, it had been the public-house +of the island, and the parish minister was by far its best customer. He +was in the practice of sitting in one of its dingy little rooms, day +after day, imbibing whisky and peat-reek; and his favorite boon +companion on these occasions was a Roman Catholic tenant who lived on +the opposite side of the island, and who, when drinking with the +minister, used regularly to fasten his horse beside the door, till at +length all the parish came to know that when the horse was standing +outside the minister was drinking within. In course of time, through the +natural gravitation operative in such cases, the poor incumbent became +utterly scandalous, and was libelled for drunkenness before the General +Assembly; but, as the island of Eigg lies remote from observation, +evidence was difficult to procure; and had not the infatuated man got +senselessly drunk one evening, when in Edinburgh on his trial, and +staggered, of all places in the world, into the General Assembly, he +would probably have died minister of Eigg. As the event happened, +however, the testimony thus unwittingly furnished in the face of the +Court that tried him was deemed conclusive;--he was summarily deposed +from his office, and my friend succeeded him. Presbyterianism without +the animating life is a poor shrunken thing: it never lies in state when +it is dead; for it has no body of fine forms, or trapping of imposing +ceremonies, to give it bulk or adornment: without the vitality of +evangelism it is nothing; and in this low and abject state my friend +found the Presbyterianism of Eigg. His predecessor had done it only +mischief; nor had it been by any means vigorous before. Rum is one of +the four islands of the parish; and all my readers must be familiar with +Dr. Johnson's celebrated account of the conversion to Protestantism of +the people of Rum. "The inhabitants," says the Doctor, in his "Journey +to the Western Islands," "are fifty-eight families, who continued +Papists for some time after the laird became a Protestant. Their +adherence to their old religion was strengthened by the countenance of +the laird's sister, a zealous Romanist; till one Sunday, as they were +going to mass under the conduct of their patroness, Maclean met them on +the way, gave one of them a blow on the head with a yellow stick,--I +suppose a cane, for which the Erse had no name, and drove them to the +kirk, from which they have never departed. Since the use of this method +of conversion, the inhabitants of Eigg and Canna who continue Papists +call the Protestantism of Rum the religion of the yellow stick." Now, +such was the kind of Protestantism that, since the days of Dr. Johnson, +had also been introduced, I know not by what means, into Eigg. It had +lived on the best possible terms with the Popery of the island; the +parish minister had soaked day after day in the public-house with a +Roman Catholic boon companion; and when a Papist man married a +Protestant woman, the woman, as a matter of course, became Papist also; +whereas, when it was the man who was a Protestant, and the woman a +Papist, the woman remained what she had been. Roman Catholicism was +quite content with terms, actual though not implied, of a kind so +decidedly advantageous; and the Roman Catholics used good-humoredly to +urge on their neighbors the Protestants, that, as it was palpable they +had no religion of any kind, they had better surely come over to them, +and have some. In short, all was harmony between the two Churches. My +friend labored hard, as a good and honest man ought, to impart to +Protestantism in his parish the animating life of the Reformation; and, +through the blessing of God, after years of anxious toil, he at length +fully succeeded. + +I had got wet, and the day continued bad; and so, instead of returning +to the evening sermon, which began at six, I remained alone aboard of +the vessel. The rain ceased in little more than an hour after, and in +somewhat more than two hours I got up on deck to see whether the +congregation was not dispersing, and if it was not yet time to hang on +the kettle for our evening tea. The unexpected apparition of some one +aboard the Free Church yacht startled two ragged boys who were +manoeuvring a little boat a stone-cast away, under the rocky shores of +_Eilean Chaisteil_, and who, on catching a glimpse of me, flung +themselves below the thwarts for concealment. An oar dropped into the +water; there was a hasty arm and half a head thrust over the gunwale to +secure it; and then the urchin to whom they belonged again disappeared. +Meanwhile the boat drifted slowly away: first one little head would +appear for a moment over the gunwale, then another, as if reconnoitering +the enemy; but I still kept my place on deck; and at length, tired out, +the ragged little crew took to their oars, and rowed into a shallow bay +at the lower extremity of the glebe, with a cottage, in size and +appearance much resembling an ant-hill, peeping out at its inner +extremity among some stunted bushes. I had marked the place before, and +had been struck with the peculiarity of the choice that could have fixed +on it as a site for a dwelling: it is at once the most inconvenient and +picturesque on this side the island. A semi-circular line of columnar +precipices, that somewhat resembles an amphitheatre turned outside +in,--for the columns that overlook the area are quite as lofty as those +which should form the amphitheatre's outer wall,--sweeps round a little +bay, flat and sandy at half-tide, but bordered higher up by a dingy, +scarce passable beach of columnar fragments that have toppled from +above. Between the beach and the line of columns there is a bosky talus, +more thickly covered with brushwood than is at all common in the +Hebrides, and scarce more passable than the rough beach at its feet. And +at the bottom of this talus, with its one gable buried in the steep +ascent,--for there is scarce a foot-breadth of platform between the +slope and the beach,--and with the other gable projected to the +tide-line on rugged columnar masses, stands the cottage. The story of +the inmate,--the father of the two ragged boys,--is such a one as Crabbe +would have delighted to tell, and as he could have told better than any +one else. + +He had been, after a sort, a freebooter in his time, but born an age or +two rather late; and the law had proved over strong for him. On at least +one occasion, perhaps oftener,--for his adventures are not all known in +Eigg,--he had been in prison for sheep-stealing. He had the dangerous +art of subsisting without the ostensible means, and came to be feared +and avoided by his neighbors as a man who lived on them without asking +their leave. With neither character nor a settled way of living, his +wits, I am afraid, must have been often whetted by his necessities: he +stole lest he should starve. For some time he had resided in the +adjacent island of Muck; but, proving a bad tenant, he had been ejected +by the agent of the landlord, I believe a very worthy man, who gave him +half a boll of meal to get quietly rid of him, and pulled down his +house, when he had left the island, to prevent his return. Betaking +himself, with his boys, to a boat, he set out in quest of some new +lodgment. He made his first attempt or two on the mainland, where he +strove to drive a trade in begging, but he was always recognized as the +convicted sheep-stealer, and driven back to the shore. At length, after +a miserable term of wandering, he landed in the winter season on Eigg, +where he had a grown-up son, a miller; and, erecting a wretched shed +with some spars and the old sail of a boat placed slantways against the +side of a rock, he squatted on the beach, determined, whether he lived +or died, to find a home on the island. The islanders were no strangers +to the character of the poor forlorn creature, and kept aloof from +him,--none of them, however, so much as his own son; and, for a time, my +friend the minister, aware that he had been the pest of every community +among which he had lived, stood aloof from him too, in the hope that at +length, wearied out, he might seek for himself a lodgment elsewhere. +There came on, however, a dreary night of sleet and rain, accompanied by +a fierce storm from the sea; and intelligence reached the manse late in +the evening, that the wretched sheep-stealer had been seized by sudden +illness, and was dying on the beach. There could be no room for further +hesitation in this case; and my friend the minister gave instant orders +that the poor creature should be carried to the manse. The party, +however, which he had sent to remove him found the task impracticable. +The night was pitch dark; and the road, dangerous with precipices, and +blocked up with rough masses of rock and stone, they found wholly +impassable with so helpless a burden. And so, administering some +cordials to the poor, hapless wretch, they had to leave him in the midst +of the storm, with the old wet sail flapping about his ears, and the +half-frozen rain pouring in upon him in torrents. He must have passed a +miserable night, but it could not have been a whit more miserable than +that passed by the minister in the manse. As the wild blast howled +around his comfortable dwelling, and shook the casements as if some hand +outside were assaying to open them, or as the rain pattered sharp and +thick on the panes, and the measured roar of the surf rose high over +every other sound, he could think of only the wretched creature exposed +to the fury of a tempest so terrible, as perchance wrestling in his +death agony in the darkness beside the breaking wave, or as already +stiffening on the shore. He was early astir next morning, and almost the +first person he met was the poor sheep-stealer, looking more like a +ghost than a living man. The miserable creature had mustered strength +enough to crawl up from the beach. My friend has often met better men +with less pleasure. He found a shelter for the poor outcast; he tended +him, prescribed for him, and, on his recovery, gave him leave to build +for himself the hovel at the foot of the crags. The islanders were aware +they had got but an indifferent neighbor through the transaction, though +none of them, with the exception of the poor creature's son, saw what +else their minister could have done in the circumstances. But the miller +could sustain no apology for the arrangement that had given him his +vagabond father as a neighbor; and oftener than once the site of the +rising hovel became a scene of noisy contention between parent and son. +Some of the islanders informed me that they had seen the son engaged in +pulling down the stones of the walls as fast as the father raised them +up; and, save for the interference of the minister, the hut, +notwithstanding the permission he gave, would scarce have been built. + +On the morning of Monday we unloosed from our moorings, and set out with +a light variable breeze for Isle Ornsay, in Skye, where the wife and +family of Mr. Swanson resided, and from which he had now been absent for +a full month. The island diminished, and assumed its tint of diluting +blue, that waxed paler and paler hour after hour, as we left it slowly +behind us; and the Scuir, projected boldly from its steep hill-top, +resembled a sharp hatchet-edge presented to the sky. "Nowhere," said my +friend, "did I so thoroughly realize the Disruption of last year as at +this spot. I had just taken my last leave of the manse; Mrs. Swanson had +staid a day behind me in charge of a few remaining pieces of furniture, +and I was bearing some of the rest, and my little boy Bill, scarce five +years of age at the time, in the yacht with me to Skye. The little +fellow had not much liked to part from his mother, and the previous +unsettling of all sorts of things in the manse had bred in him thoughts +he had not quite words to express. The further change to the yacht, too, +he had deemed far from an agreeable one. But he had borne up, by way of +being very manly; and he seemed rather amused that papa should now have +to make his porridge for him, and to put him to bed, and that it was +John Stewart, the sailor, who was to be the servant girl. The passage, +however, was tedious and disagreeable; the wind blew a-head, and heart +and spirits failing poor Bill, and somewhat sea-sick to boot, he lay +down on the floor, and cried bitterly to be taken home. 'Alas, my boy!' +I said, 'you have no home now: your father is like the poor +sheep-stealer whom you saw on the shore of Eigg.' This view of matters +proved in no way consolatory to poor Bill. He continued his sad wail, +'Home, home, home!' until at length he fairly sobbed himself asleep; and +I never, on any other occasion, so felt the desolateness of my condition +as when the cry of my boy,--'Home, home, home!'--was ringing in my +ears." + +We passed, on the one hand, Loch Nevis and Loch Hourn, two fine arms of +the sea that run far into the mainland, and open up noble vistas among +the mountains; and, on the other, the long undulating line of Sleat in +Skye, with its intermingled patches of woodland and arable on the coast, +and its mottled ranges of heath and rock above. Towards evening we +entered the harbor of Isle Ornsay, a quiet, well-sheltered bay, with a +rocky islet for a breakwater on the one side, and the rudiments of a +Highland village, containing a few good houses, on the other. Half a +dozen small vessels were riding at anchor, curtained round, half-mast +high, with herring nets; and a fleet of herring-boats lay moored beside +them a little nearer the shore. There had been tolerable takes for a few +nights in the neighboring sea, but the fish had again disappeared, and +the fishermen, whose worn-out tackle gave such evidence of a +long-continued run of ill-luck, as I had learned to interpret on the +east coast, looked gloomy and spiritless, and reported a deficient +fishery. I found Mrs. Swanson and her family located in one of the two +best houses in the village, with a neat enclosure in front, and a good +kitchen-garden behind. The following day I spent in exploring the rocks +of the district,--a primary region with regard to organic existence, +"without _form_ and void." From Isle Ornsay to the Point of Sleat, a +distance of thirteen miles, gneiss is the prevailing deposit; and in no +place in the district are the strata more varied and interesting than in +the neighborhood of Knockhouse, the residence of Mr. Elder, which I +found pleasingly situated at the bottom of a little open bay, skirted +with picturesque knolls partially wooded, that present to the surf +precipitous fronts of rock. One insulated eminence, a gun-shot from the +dwelling-house, that presents to the sea two mural fronts of precipice, +and sinks in steep grassy slopes on two sides more, bears atop a fine +old ruin. There is a blind-fronted massy keep, wrapped up in a mantle of +ivy, perched at the one end, where the precipice sinks steepest; while a +more ruinous though much more modern pile of building, perforated by a +double row of windows, occupies the rest of the area. The square keep +has lost its genealogy in the mists of the past, but a vague tradition +attributes its erection to the Norwegians. The more modern pile is said +to have been built about three centuries ago by a younger son of +M'Donald of the Isles; but it is added that, owing to the jealousy of +his elder brother, he was not permitted to complete or inhabit it. I +find it characteristic of most Highland traditions, that they contain +speeches: they constitute true oral specimens of that earliest and +rudest style of historic composition in which dialogue alternates with +narrative. "My wise brother is building a fine house," is the speech +preserved in this tradition as that of the elder son: "it is rather a +pity for himself that he should be building it on another man's lands." +The remark was repeated to the builder, says the story, and at once +arrested the progress of the work. Mr. Elder's boys showed me several +minute pieces of brass, somewhat resembling rust-eaten coin, that they +had dug out of the walls of the old keep; but the pieces bore no impress +of the dye, and seemed mere fragments of metal beaten thin by the +hammer. + +The gneiss at Knock is exceedingly various in its composition, and many +of its strata the geologist would fail to recognize as gneiss at all. We +find along the precipices its two unequivocal varieties, the schistose +and the granitic, passing not unfrequently, the former into a true mica +schist, the latter into a pale feldspathose rock, thickly pervaded by +needle-like crystals of tremolite, that, from the style of the grouping, +and the contrast existing between the dark green of the enclosed +mineral, and the pale flesh-color of the ground, frequently furnishes +specimens of great beauty. In some pieces the tremolite assumes the +common fan-like form; in some, the crystals, lying at nearly right +angles with each other, present the appearance of ancient characters +inlaid in the rock; in some they resemble the footprints of birds in a +thin layer of snow; and in one curious specimen picked up by Mr. +Swanson, in which a dark linear strip is covered transversely by +crystals that project thickly from both its sides, the appearance +presented is that of a minute stigmaria of the Coal Measures, with the +leaves, still bearing their original green color, bristling thick around +it. Mr. Elder showed me, intercalated among the gneiss strata of a +little ravine in the neighborhood of Isle Ornsay, a thin band of a +bluish-colored indurated clay, scarcely distinguishable, in the hand +specimen, from a weathered clay-stone, but unequivocally a stratum of +the rock. I have found the same stone existing, in a decomposed state, +as a very tenacious clay, among the gneiss strata of the hill of +Cromarty; and oftener than once had I amused myself in fashioning it, +with tolerable success, into such rude pieces of pottery as are +sometimes found in old sepulchral tumuli. Such are a few of the rocks +included in the general gneiss deposit of Sleat. If we are to hold, with +one of the most distinguished of living geologists, that the stratified +primary rocks are aqueous deposits altered by heat, to how various a +chemistry must they not have been subjected in this district! In one +stratum, so softened that all its particles were disengaged to enter +into new combinations, and yet not so softened but that it still +maintained its lines of division from the strata above and below, the +green tremolite was shooting its crystals into the pale homogeneous +mass; while in another stratum the quartz drew its atoms apart in masses +that assumed one especial form, the feldspar drew its atoms apart into +masses that assumed another and different form, and the glittering mica +built up its multitudinous layers between. Here the unctuous chlorite +constructed its soft felt; there the micaceous schist arranged its +undulating layers; yonder the dull clay hardened amid the intense heat, +but, when all else was changing, retained its structure unchanged. +Surely a curious chemistry, and conducted on an enormous scale! + +It had been an essential part of my plan to explore the splendid section +of the Lower Oolite furnished by the line of sea-cliffs that, to the +north of the Portree, rise full seven hundred feet over the beach; and +on the morning of Wednesday I set out with this intention from Isle +Ornsay, to join the mail gig at Broadford, and pass on to Portree,--a +journey of rather more than thirty miles. I soon passed over the gneiss, +and entered on a wide deposit, extending from side to side of the +island, of what is generally laid down in our geological maps as Old Red +Sandstone, but which, in most of its beds, quite as much resembles a +quartz rock, and which, unlike any Old Red proper I have ever seen, +passes, by insensible gradations, into the gneiss.[2] Wherever it has +been laid bare in flat tables among the heath, we find it bearing those +mysterious scratches on a polished surface which we so commonly find +associated on the mainland with the boulder clay; but here, as in the +Hebrides generally, the boulder clay is wanting. To the tract of Red +Sandstone there succeeds a tract of Lias, which, also extending across +the island, forms by far the most largely-developed deposit of this +formation in Scotland. It occupies a flat dingy valley, about six miles +in length, and that varies from two to four miles in breadth. The dreary +interior is covered with mosses, and studded with inky pools, in which +the botanist finds a few rare plants, and which were dimpled, as I +passed them this morning, with countless eddies, formed by myriads of +small quick glancing trout, that seemed busily engaged in fly-catching. +The rock appears but rarely,--all is moss, marsh, and pool; but in a few +localities on the hill-sides, where some stream has cut into the slope, +and disintegrated the softer shales, the shepherd finds shells of +strange form strewed along the water-courses, or bleaching white among +the heath. The valley,--evidently a dangerous one to the night +traveller, from its bogs and its tarns,--is said to be haunted by a +spirit peculiar to itself,--a mischievous, eccentric, grotesque +creature, not unworthy, from the monstrosity of its form, of being +associated with the old monsters of the Lias. Luidag--for so the goblin +is called--has but one leg, terminating, like an ancient satyr's, in a +cloven foot; but it is furnished with two arms, bearing hard fists at +the end of them, with which it has been known to strike the benighted +traveller in the face, or to tumble him over into some dark pool. The +spectre may be seen at the close of evening hopping vigorously among the +distant bogs, like a felt ball on its electric platform; and when the +mist lies thick in the hollows, an occasional glimpse may be caught of +it even by day. But when I passed the way there was no fog: the light, +though softened by a thin film of cloud, fell equally over the heath, +revealing hill and hollow; and I was unlucky enough not to see this +goblin of the Liasic valley. + +A deep indentation of the coast, which forms the bay of Broadford, +corresponds with the hollow of the valley. It is simply a portion of the +valley itself occupied by the sea; and we find the Lias, from its lower +to its upper beds, exposed in unbroken series along the beach. In the +middle of the opening lies the green level island of Pabba, altogether +composed of this formation, and which, differing, in consequence, both +in outline and color, from every neighboring island and hill, seems a +little bit of flat fertile England, laid down, as if for contrast's +sake, amid the wild rough Hebrides. Of Pabba and its wonders, however, +more anon. I explored a considerable range of shore along the bay; but +as I made it the subject of two after explorations ere I mastered its +deposits, I shall defer my description till a subsequent chapter. It was +late this evening ere the post-gig arrived from the south, and the night +and several hours of the following morning were spent in travelling to +Portree. I know not, however, that I could have seen some of the wildest +and most desolate tracts in Skye to greater advantage. There was light +enough to show the bold outlines of the hills,--lofty, abrupt, +pyramidal,--just such hills, both in form and grouping, as a profile in +black showed best; a low blue vapor slept in the calm over the marshes +at their feet; the sea, smooth as glass, reflected the dusk twilight +gleam in the north, revealing the narrow sounds and deep +mountain-girdled lochs along which we passed; gray crags gleamed dimly +on the sight; birch-feathered acclivities presented against sea and sky +their rough bristly edges; all was vast, dreamy, obscure, like one of +Martin's darker pictures: the land of the seer and the spectre could not +have been better seen. Morning broke dim and gray, while we were yet +several miles from Portree; and I reached the inn in time to see from my +bed-room windows the first rays of the rising sun gleaming on the +hill-tops. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + Exploration resumed--Geology of Rasay--An Illustration--Storr of + Skye--From Portree to Holm--Discovery of Fossils--An Island + Rain--Sir R. Murchison--Labor of drawing a Geological Line--Three + Edinburgh Gentlemen--_Prosopolepsia_--Wrong surmises corrected--The + Mail Gig--The Portree Postmaster--Isle Ornsay--An Old + Acquaintance--Reminiscences--A Run for Rum--"Semi-fossil + Madeira"--Idling on Deck--Prognostics of a Storm--Description of + the Gale--Loch Scresort--The Minister's lost _Sou-wester_--The Free + Church Gathering--The weary Minister. + + +I breakfasted in the travellers' room with three gentlemen from +Edinburgh; and then, accompanied by a boy, whom I had engaged to carry +my bag, set out to explore. The morning was ominously hot and +breathless; and while the sea lay moveless in the calm, as a floor of +polished marble, mountain and rock, and distant island, seemed tremulous +all over, through a wavy medium of thick rising vapor. I judged from the +first that my course of exploration for the day was destined to +terminate abruptly; and as my arrangements with Mr. Swanson left me, for +this part of the country, no second day to calculate upon, I hurried +over deposits which in other circumstances I would have examined more +carefully,--content with a glance. Accustomed in most instances to take +long aims, as Cuddy Headrig did, when he steadied his musket on a rest +behind the hedge, and sent his ball through Laird Oliphant's forehead, I +had on this occasion to shoot flying; and so, selecting a large object +for a mark, that I might run the less risk of missing, I strove to +acquaint myself rather with the general structure of the district than +with the organisms of its various fossiliferous beds. + +The long narrow island of Rasay lies parallel to the coast of Skye, +like a vessel laid along a wharf, but drawn out from it as if to suffer +another vessel of the same size to take her berth between; and on the +eastern shores of both Skye and Rasay we find the same Oolitic deposits +tilted up at nearly the same angle. The section presented on the eastern +coast of the one is nearly a duplicate of the section presented on the +eastern coast of the other. During one of the severer frosts of last +winter I passed along a shallow pond, studded along the sides with +boulder stones. It had been frozen over; and then, from the evaporation +so common in protracted frosts, the water had shrunk, and the sheet of +ice which had sunk down over the central portion of the pond exhibited +what a geologist would term very considerable marks of disturbance among +the boulders at the edges. Over one sharp-backed boulder there lay a +sheet tilted up like the lid of a chest half-raised; and over another +boulder immediately behind it there lay another uptilted sheet, like the +lid of a second half-open chest; and in both sheets, the edges, lying in +nearly parallel lines, presented a range of miniature cliffs to the +shore. Now, in the two uptilted ice-sheets of this pond I recognized a +model of the fundamental Oolitic deposits Rasay and Skye. The mainland +of Scotland had its representative in the crisp snow-covered shore of +the pond, with its belt of faded sedges; the place of Rasay was +indicated by the inner, that of Skye by the outer boulder; while the +ice-sheets, with their shoreward-turned line of cliffs, represented the +Oolitic beds, that turn to the mainland their dizzy range of precipices, +varying from six to eight hundred feet in height, and then, sloping +outwards and downwards, disappear under mountain wildernesses of +overlying trap. And it was along a portion of the range of cliff that +forms the outermost of the two uptilted lines, and which presents in +this district of Skye a frontage of nearly twenty continuous miles to +the long Sound of Rasay, that my to-day's course of exploration lay. +From the top of the cliff the surface slopes downwards for about two +miles into the interior, like the half-raised chest-lid of my +illustration sloping towards the hinges, or the uptilted ice-table of +the boulder sloping towards the centre of the pond; and the depression +behind forms a flat moory valley, full fifteen miles in length, occupied +by a chain of dark bogs and treeless lochans. A long line of trap-hills +rises over it, in one of which, considerably in advance of the others, I +recognized the Storr of Skye, famous among lovers of the picturesque for +its strange group of mingled pinnacles and towers; while directly +crossing into the valley from the Sound, and then running southwards for +about two miles along its bottom, is the noble sea-arm, Loch Portree, in +which, as indicated by the name (the King's Port) a Scottish king of the +olden time, in his voyage round his dominions, cast anchor. The opening +of the loch is singularly majestic;--the cliffs tower high on either +side in graceful magnificence: but from the peculiar inward slope of the +land, all within, as the loch reaches the line of the valley, becomes +tame and low, and a black dreary moor stretches from the flat terminal +basin into the interior. The opening of Loch Portree is a palace +gateway, erected in front of some homely suburb, that occupies the place +which the palace itself should have occupied. + +There was, however, no such mixture of the homely and the magnificent in +the route I had selected to explore. It lay under the escarpment of the +cliff; and I purposed pursuing it from Portree to Holm, a distance of +about six miles, and then returning by the flat interior valley. On the +one hand rose a sloping rampart, full seven hundred feet in height, +striped longitudinally with alternating bands of white sandstone and +dark shale, and capped atop by a continuous coping of trap, that lacked +not massy tower, and overhanging turret, and projecting sentry-box; +while, on the other hand, spreading outwards in the calm from the line +of dark trap-rocks below, like a mirror from its carved frame of black +oak, lay the Sound of Rasay, with its noble background of island and +main rising bold on the east, and its long mountain vista opening to the +south. The first fossiliferous deposit which gave me occasion this +morning to use my hammer occurs near the opening of the loch, beside an +old Celtic burying-ground, in the form of a thick bed of hard sandstone, +charged with Belemnites,--a bed that must at one time have existed as a +widely-spread accumulation of sand,--the bottom, mayhap, of some +extensive bay of the Oolite, resembling the Loch Portree of the present +day, in which eddy tides deposited the sand swept along by the tidal +currents of some neighboring sound, and which swarmed as thickly with +Cephalopoda as the loch swarmed this day with minute purple-tinged +Medusae. I found detached on the shore, immediately below this bed, a +piece of calcareous fissile sandstone, abounding in small sulcated +Terebratulae, identical, apparently, with the Terebratula of a specimen +in my collection from the inferior Oolite of Yorkshire. A colony of this +delicate Brachiopod must have once lain moored near this spot, like a +fleet of long-prowed galleys at anchor, each one with its cable of many +strands extended earthwards from the single _dead-eye_ in its umbone. +For a full mile after rounding the northern boundary of the loch, we +find the immense escarpment composed from top to bottom exclusively of +trap; but then the Oolite again begins to appear, and about two miles +further on the section becomes truly magnificent,--one of the finest +sections of this formation exhibited anywhere in Britain, perhaps in the +world. In a ravine furrowed in the face of the declivity by the headlong +descent of a small stream, we may trace all the beds of the system in +succession, from the Cornbrash, an upper deposit of the Lower Oolite, +down to the Lias, the formation on which the Oolite rests. The only +modifying circumstance to the geologist is, that though the sandstone +beds run continuously along the cliff for miles together, distinct as +the white bands in a piece of onyx, the intervening beds of shale are +swarded over, save where we here and there see them laid bare in some +abrupter acclivity or deeper water-course. In the shale we find numerous +minute Ammonites, sorely weathered; in the sandstone, Belemnites, some +of them of great size; and dark carbonaceous markings, passing not +unfrequently into a glossy cubical coal. At the foot of the cliff I +picked up an ammonite of considerable size and well-marked +character,--the _Ammonites Murchisonae_, first discovered on this coast +by Sir R. Murchison about fifteen years ago. It measures, when full +grown, from six to seven inches in diameter; the inner whorls, which are +broadly visible, are ribbed; whereas the two, and sometimes the three +outer ones, are smooth,--a marked characteristic of the species. My +specimen merely enabled me to examine the peculiarities of the shell +just a little more minutely than I could have done in the pages of +Sowerby; for such was its state of decay, that it fell to pieces in my +hands. I had now come full in view of the rocky island of Holm, when the +altered appearance of the heavens led me to deliberate, just as I was +warming in the work of exploration, whether, after all, it might not be +well to scale the cliffs, and strike directly on the inn. It was nearly +three o'clock; the sky had been gradually darkening since noon, as if +one thin covering of gauze after another had been drawn over it; hill +and island had first dimmed and then disappeared in the landscape; and +now the sun stood up right over the fast-contracting vista of the Sound, +round and lightless as the moon in a haze; and the downward +cataract-like streaming of the gray vapor on the horizon showed that +there the rain had already broken, and was descending in torrents. We +had been thirsty in the hot sun, and had found the springs few and +scanty; but the boy now assured me, in very broken English, that we were +to get a great deal more water than would be good for us, and that it +might be advisable to get out of its way. And so, climbing to the top of +the cliffs, along a water-course, we reached the ridge, just as the fog +came rolling downwards from the peaked brow of the Storr into the flat +moory valley, and the melancholy lochans roughened and darkened in the +rain. We were both particularly wet ere we reached Portree. + +In exploring our Scotch formations, I have had frequent occasion, in +Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, and now once more in Skye, to pass over +ground described by Sir R. Murchison; and in every instance have I found +myself immensely his debtor. His descriptions possess the merit of being +true: they are simple outlines often, that leave much to be filled up by +after discovery; but, like those outlines of the skilful geographer that +fix the place of some island or strait, though they may not entirely +define it, they always indicate the exact position in the scale of the +formations to which they refer. They leave a good deal to be done in the +way of mapping out the interior of a deposit, if I may so speak; but +they leave nothing to be done in the way of ascertaining its place. The +work accomplished is _bona fide_ work,--actual, solid, not to be done +over again,--work such as could be achieved in only the school of Dr. +William Smith, the father of English Geology. I have found much to +admire, too, in the sections of Sir R. Murchison. His section of this +part of the coast, for example, strikes from the extreme northern part +of Skye to the island of Holm, thence to Scrapidale in Rasay, thence +along part of the coast of Scalpa, thence direct through the middle of +Pabba, and thence to the shore of the Bay of Laig. The line thus taken +includes, in regular sequence in the descending order, the whole Oolitic +deposits of the Hebrides, from the Cornbrash, with its overlying +fresh-water outliers of mayhap the Weald, down to where the Lower Lias +rests on the primary red sandstones of Sleat. It would have cost +M'Culloch less exploration to have written a volume than it must have +cost Sir R. Murchison to draw this single line; but the line once drawn, +is work done to the hands of all after explorers. I have followed +repeatedly in the track of another geologist, of, however, a very +different school, who explored, at a comparatively recent period, the +deposits of not a few of our Scotch counties. But his labors, in at +least the fossiliferous formations, seem to have accomplished nothing +for Geology,--I am afraid, even less than nothing. So far as they had +influence at all, it must have been to throw back the science. A +geologist who could have asserted only three years ago ("Geognostical +Account of Banffshire," 1842), that the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland +forms merely "a part of the great coal deposit," could have known +marvellously little of the fossils of the one system, and nothing +whatever of those of the other. Had he examined ere he decided, instead +of deciding without any intention of examining, he would have found +that, while both systems abound in organic remains, they do not possess, +in Scotland at least, a single species in common, and that even their +types of being, viewed in the group, are essentially distinct. + +The three Edinburgh gentlemen whom I had met at breakfast were still in +the inn. One of them I had seen before, as one of the guests at a +Wesleyan soiree, though I saw he failed to remember that I had been +there as a guest too. The two other gentlemen were altogether strangers +to me. One of them,--a man on the right side of forty, and a superb +specimen of the powerful, six-feet two-inch Norman Celt,--I set down as +a scion of some old Highland family, who, as the broadsword had gone +out, carried on the internal wars of the country with the formidable +artillery of Statute and Decision. The other, a gentleman more advanced +in life, I predicated to be a Highland proprietor, the uncle of the +younger of the two,--a man whose name, as he had an air of business +about him, occurred, in all probability, in the Almanac, in the list of +Scotch advocates. Both were of course high Tories,--I was quite sure of +that,--zealous in behalf of the Establishment, though previous to the +Disruption they had not cared for it a pin's point,--and prepared to +justify the virtual suppression of the toleration laws in the case of +the Free Church. I was thus decidedly guilty of what old Dr. More calls +a _prosopolepsia_,--_i.e._ of the crime of judging men by their looks. +At dinner, however, we gradually ate ourselves into conversation: we +differed, and disputed, and agreed, and then differed, disputed and +agreed again. I found first, that my chance companions were really not +very high Tories; and then, that they were not Tories at all; and then, +that the younger of the two was very much a Whig, and the more advanced +in life,--strange as the fact might seem,--very considerably a +_Presbyterian_ Whig; and finally, that this latter gentleman, whom I had +set down as an intolerant Highland proprietor, was a respected writer to +the signet, a Free Church elder in Edinburgh; and that the other, his +equally intolerant nephew, was an Edinburgh advocate, of vigorous +talent, much an enemy of all oppression, and a brother contributor of my +own to one of the Quarterlies. Of all my surmisings regarding the +stranger gentlemen, only two points held true,--they were both +gentlemen of the law, and both had Celtic blood in their veins. The +evening passed pleasantly; and I can now recommend from experience, to +the hapless traveller who gets thoroughly wet thirty miles from a change +of dress, that some of the best things he can resort to in the +circumstances are, a warm room, a warm glass, and agreeable companions. + +On the morrow I behooved to return to Isle Ornsay, to set out on the +following day, with my friend the minister, for Rum, where he purposed +preaching on the Sabbath. To have lost a day would have been to lose the +opportunity of exploring the island, perhaps forever; and, to make all +sure, I had taken a seat in the mail gig, from the postman who drives +it, ere going to bed, on the morning of my arrival; and now, when it +drove up, I went to take my place in it. The postmaster of the village, +a lean, hungry-looking man, interfered to prevent me. I had secured my +seat, I said, two days previous. Ah, but I had not secured it from him. +"I know nothing of you," I replied; "but I secured it from one who +deemed himself authorized to receive the fare; was he so?" "Yes." "Could +you have received it?" "No." "Show me a copy of your regulations." "I +have no copy of regulations; but I have given the place in the gig to +another." "Just so; and what say you, postman?" "That you took the place +from me, and that _he_ has no right to give a place to any one: I carry +the Portree letters to him, but he has nothing to do with the +passengers." A person present, the proprietor or stabler of the horse, I +believe, also interfered on the same side; but what Carlyle terms the +"gigmanity" of the postmaster was all at stake,--his whole influence in +the mail-gig of Portree; and so he argued, and threatened withal, and, +what was the more serious part of the business, the person he had given +the seat to had taken possession of the gig; and so we had to compound +the matter by carrying a passenger additional. The incident is scarce +worth relating; but the postmaster was so vehement and terrible, so +defiant of us all,--post, stabler, and simple passenger,--and so justly +impressed with the importance of being postmaster of Portree, that, as I +am in the way of describing rare specimens at any rate, I must refer to +him among the rest, as if he had been one of the minor carnivorae of a +Skye deposit,--a cuttlefish, that preyed on the weaker molluscs, or a +hungry polypus, terrible among the animalculae. + +We drove heavily, and had to dismount and walk afoot over every steeper +acclivity; but I carried my hammer, and only grieved that in some one or +two localities the road should have been so level. I regretted it in +especial on the southern and eastern side of Loch Sligachan, where I +could see from my seat, as we drove past, the dark blue rocks in the +water-courses on each side the road, studded over with that +characteristic shell of the Lias, the _Gryphaea incurva_, and that the +dry-stone fences in the moor above exhibit fossils that might figure in +a museum. But we rattled by. At Broadford, twenty-five miles from +Portree, and nine miles from Isle Ornsay, I partook of a hospitable meal +in the house of an acquaintance; and in little more than two hours after +was with my friend the minister at Isle Ornsay. The night wore +pleasantly by. Mrs. Swanson, a niece of the late Dr. Smith of +Campbelton, so well known for his Celtic researches and his exquisite +translations of ancient Celtic poetry, I found deeply versed in the +legendary lore of the Highlands. The minister showed me a fine specimen +of Pterichthys which I had disinterred for him, out of my first +discovered fossiliferous deposit of the Old Red Sandstone, exactly +thirteen years before, and full seven years ere I had introduced the +creature to the notice of Agassiz. And the minister's daughter, a +little chubby girl of three summers, taking part in the general +entertainment, strove to make her Gaelic sound as like English as she +could, in my especial behalf. I remembered, as I listened to the +unintelligible prattle of the little thing, unprovided with a word of +English, that just eighteen years before, her father had had no Gaelic; +and wondered what he would have thought, could he have been told, when +he first sat down to study it, the story of his island charge in Eigg, +and his Free Church yacht the Betsey. Nineteen years before, we had been +engaged in beating over the Eathie Lias together, collecting Belemnites, +Ammonites, and fossil wood, and striving in friendly emulation the one +to surpass the other in the variety and excellence of our specimens. Our +leisure hours were snatched, at the time, from college studies by the +one, from the mallet by the other: there were few of them that we did +not spend together, and that we were not mutually the better for so +spending. I at least, owe much to these hours,--among other things, +views of theologic truth, that determined the side I have taken in our +ecclesiastical controversy. Our courses at an after period lay diverse; +the young minister had greatly more important business to pursue than +any which the geologic field furnishes; and so our amicable rivalry +ceased early. In the words in which an English poet addresses his +brother,--the clergyman who sat for the picture in the "Deserted +Village,"--my friend "entered on a sacred office, where the harvest is +great and the laborers are few, and left to me a field in which the +laborers are many, and the harvest scarce worth carrying away." + +Next day at noon we weighed anchor, and stood out for Rum, a run of +about twenty-five miles. A kind friend had, we found, sent aboard in our +behalf two pieces of rare antiquity,--rare anywhere, but especially +rare in the lockers of the Betsey,--in the agreeable form of two bottles +of semi-fossil Madeira,--Madeira that had actually existed in the grape +exactly half a century before, at the time when Robespierre was +startling Paris from its propriety, by mutilating at the neck the busts +of other people, and multiplying casts and medals of his own; and we +found it, explored in moderation, no bad study for geologists, +especially in coarse weather, when they had got wet and somewhat +fatigued. It was like Landlord Boniface's ale, mild as milk, had +exchanged its distinctive flavor as Madeira for a better one, and filled +the cabin with fragrance every time the cork was drawn. Old observant +Homer must have smelt some such liquor somewhere, or he could never have +described so well the still more ancient and venerable wine with which +wily Ulysses beguiled one-eyed Polypheme:-- + + "Unmingled wine, + Mellifluous, undecaying, and divine, + Which now, some ages from his race concealed, + The hoary sire in gratitude revealed.... + Scarce twenty measures from the living stream + To cool one cup sufficed: the goblet crowned, + Breathed aromatic fragrances around." + +Winds were light and variable. As we reached the middle of the sound +opposite Armadale, there fell a dead calm; and the Betsey, more actively +idle than the ship manned by the Ancient Mariner, dropped sternwards +along the tide, to the dull music of the flapping sail. The minister +spent the day in the cabin, engaged with his discourse for the morrow; +and I, that he might suffer as little from interruption as possible, +_mis_-spent it upon the deck. I tried fishing with the yacht's set of +lines, but there were no fish to bite,--got into the boat, but there +were no neighboring islands to visit,--and sent half a dozen +pistol-bullets after a shoal of porpoises, which, coming from the Free +Church yacht, must have astonished the fat sleek fellows pretty +considerably, but did them, I am afraid, no serious damage. As the +evening began to close gloomy and gray, a tumbling swell came heaving in +right ahead from the west; and a bank of cloud, which had been gradually +rising higher and darker over the horizon in the same direction, first +changed its abrupt edge atop for a diffused and broken line, and then +spread itself over the central heavens. The calm was evidently not to be +a calm long; and the minister issued orders that the gaff-topsail should +be taken down, and the storm-jib bent; and that we should lower our +topmast, and have all tight and ready for a smart gale ahead. At half +past ten, however, the Betsey was still pitching to the swell, with not +a breath of wind to act on the diminished canvas, and with the solitary +circumstance in her favor, that the tide ran no longer against her, as +before. The cabin was full of all manner of creakings; the close lamp +swung to and fro over the head of my friend; and a refractory +Concordance, after having twice travelled from him along the entire +length of the table, flung itself pettishly upon the floor. I got into +my snug bed about eleven; and at twelve, the minister, after poring +sufficiently over his notes, and drawing the final score, turned into +his. In a brief hour after, on came the gale, in a style worthy of its +previous hours of preparation; and my friend,--his Saturday's work in +his ministerial capacity well over when he had completed his two +discourses,--had to begin the Sabbath morning early as the morning +itself began, by taking his stand at the helm, in his capacity of +skipper of the Betsey. With the prospect of the services of the Sabbath +before him, and after working all Saturday to boot, it was rather hard +to set him down to a midnight spell at the helm, but he could not be +wanted at such a time, as we had no other such helmsman aboard. The +gale, thickened with rain, came down, shrieking like a maniac, from off +the peaked hills of Rum, striking away the tops of the long ridgy +billows that had risen in the calm to indicate its approach, and then +carrying them in sheets of spray aslant the furrowed surface, like +snow-drift hurried across a frozen field. But the Betsey, with her +storm-jib set, and her mainsail reefed to the cross, kept her weather +bow bravely to the blast, and gained on it with every tack. She had been +the pleasure yacht, in her day, of a man of fortune, who had used, in +running south with her at times as far as Lisbon, to encounter, on not +worse terms than the stateliest of her neighbors in the voyage, the +swell of the Bay of Biscay; and she still kept true to her old +character, with but this drawback, that she had now got somewhat crazy +in her fastenings, and made rather more water in a heavy sea than her +one little pump could conveniently keep under. As the fitful gust struck +her headlong, as if it had been some invisible missile hurled at us from +off the hill-tops, she stooped her head lower and lower, like old +stately Hardyknute under the blow of the "King of Norse," till at length +the lee chain-plate rustled sharp through the foam; but, like a staunch +Free Churchwoman, the lowlier she bent, the more steadfastly did she +hold her head to the storm. The strength of the opposition served but to +speed her on all the more surely to the desired haven. At five o'clock +in the morning we cast anchor in Loch Scresort,--the only harbor of Rum +in which a vessel can moor,--within two hundred yards of the shore, +having, with the exception of the minister, gained no loss in the gale. +He, luckless man, had parted from his excellent _sou-wester_; a sudden +gust had seized it by the flap, and hurried it away far to the lee. He +had yielded it to the winds, as he had done the temporalities, but much +more unwillingly, and less as a free agent. Should any conscientious +mariner pick up any where in the Atlantic a serviceable ochre-colored +_sou-wester_, not at all the worse for the wear, I give him to wit that +he holds Free Church property, and that he is heartily welcome to hold +it, leaving it to himself to consider whether a benefaction to its full +value, deducting salvage, is not owing, in honor, to the Sustenation +Fund. + +It was ten o'clock ere the more fatigued aboard could muster resolution +enough to quit their beds a second time; and then it behooved the +minister to prepare for his Sabbath labors ashore. The gale still blew +in fierce gusts from the hills, and the rain pattered like small shot on +the deck. Loch Scresort, by no means one of our finer island lochs, +viewed under any circumstances, looked particularly dismal this morning. +It forms the opening of a dreary moorland valley, bounded on one of its +sides, to the mouth of the loch, by a homely ridge of Old Red Sandstone, +and on the other by a line of dark augitic hills, that attain, at the +distance of about a mile from the sea, an elevation of two thousand +feet. Along the slopes of the sandstone ridge I could discern, through +the haze, numerous green patches, that had once supported a dense +population, long since "cleared off" to the backwoods of America, but +not one inhabited dwelling; while along a black moory acclivity under +the hills on the other side I could see several groups of turf cottages, +with here and there a minute speck of raw-looking corn beside them, +that, judging from its color, seemed to have but a slight chance of +ripening. The hill-tops were lost in cloud and storm; and ever and anon, +as a heavier shower came sweeping down on the wind, the intervening +hollows closed up their gloomy vistas, and all was fog and rime to the +water's edge. Bad as the morning was, however, we could see the people +wending their way, in threes and fours, through the dark moor, to the +place of worship,--a black turf hovel, like the meeting-house in Eigg. +The appearance of the Betsey in the loch had been the gathering signal; +and the Free Church islanders,--three-fourths of the entire +population--had all come out to meet their minister. + +On going ashore, we found the place nearly filled. My friend preached +two long energetic discourses, and then returned to the yacht, "a worn +and weary man." The studies of the previous day, and the fatigues of the +previous night, added to his pulpit duties, had so fairly prostrated his +strength, that the sternest teetotaller in the kingdom would scarce have +forbidden him a glass of our fifty-year-old Madeira. But even the +fifty-year-old Madeira proved no specific in the case. He was suffering +under excruciating headache, and had to stretch himself in his bed, with +eyes shut but sleepless, waiting till the fit should pass,--every pulse +that beat in his temples a throb of pain. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + Geology of Rum--Its curious Character illustrated--Rum famous for + Bloodstones--Red Sandstones--"Scratchings" in the Rocks--A + Geological Inscription without a Key--The Lizard--Vitality broken + into two--Illustrations--Speculation--Scuir More--Ascent of the + Scuir--The Bloodstones--An Illustrative Set of the Gem--M'Culloch's + Pebble--A Chemical Problem--The solitary Shepherd's House--Sheep + _versus_ Men--The Depopulation of Rum--A Haul of Trout--Rum Mode of + catching Trout--At Anchor in the Bay of Glenelg. + + +The geology of the island of Rum is simple, but curious. Let the reader +take, if he can, from twelve to fifteen trap-hills, varying from one +thousand to two thousand three hundred feet in height; let him pack them +closely and squarely together, like rum-bottles in a case-basket; let +him surround them with a frame of Old Red Sandstone, measuring rather +more than seven miles on the side, in the way the basket surrounds the +bottles; then let him set them down in the sea a dozen miles off the +land,--and he shall have produced a second island of Rum, similar in +structure to the existing one. In the actual island, however, there is a +defect in the inclosing basket of sandstone: the basket, complete on +three of its sides, wants the fourth: and the side opposite to the gap +which the fourth should have occupied is thicker than the two other +sides put together. Where I now write there is an old dark-colored +picture on the wall before me. I take off one of the four bars of which +the frame is composed,--the end-bar,--and stick it on to the end-bar +opposite, and then the picture is fully framed on two of its sides, and +doubly framed on a third, but the fourth side lacks framing altogether. +And such is the geology of the island of Rum. We find the one loch of +the island,--that in which the Betsey lies at anchor,--and the long +withdrawing valley, of which the loch is merely a prolongation, +occurring in the double sandstone bar: it seems to mark--to return to my +illustration--the line in which the superadded piece of frame has been +stuck on to the frame proper. The origin of the island is illustrated by +its structure: it has left its story legibly written, and we have but to +run our eye over the characters and read. An extended sea-bottom, +composed of Old Red Sandstone, already tilted up by previous +convulsions, so that the strata presented their edges, tier beyond tier, +like roofing slate laid aslant on a floor, became a centre of Plutonic +activity. The molten trap broke through at various times, and presenting +various appearances, but in nearly the same centre; here existing as an +augitic rock, there as a syenite, yonder as a basalt or amygdaloid. At +one place it uptilted the sandstone; at another it overflowed it; the +dark central masses raised their heads above the surface, higher and +higher with every earthquake throe from beneath; till at length the +gigantic Ben More attained to its present altitude of two thousand three +hundred feet over the sea-level, and the sandstone, borne up from +beneath like floating sea-wrack on the back of a porpoise, reached in +long outside bands its elevation of from six to eight hundred. And such +is the piece of history, composed in silent but expressive language, and +inscribed in the old geological character, on the rocks of Rum. + +The wind lowered and the rain ceased during the night, and the morning +of Monday was clear, bracing, and breezy. The island of Rum is chiefly +famous among mineralogists for its heliotropes or bloodstones; and we +proposed devoting the greater part of the day to an examination of the +hill of Scuir More, in which they occur, and which lies on the opposite +side of the island, about eight miles from the mooring ground of the +Betsey. Ere setting out, however, I found time enough, by rising some +two or three hours before breakfast, to explore the Red Sandstones on +the southern side of the loch. They lie in this bar of the frame,--to +return once more to my old illustration,--as if it had been cut out of a +piece of cross-grained deal, in which the annular bands, instead of +ranging lengthwise, ran diagonally from side to side; stratum leans over +stratum, dipping towards the west at an angle of about thirty degrees; +and as in a continuous line of more than seven miles there seem no +breaks or repetitions in the strata, the thickness of the deposit must +be enormous,--not less, I should suppose, than from six to eight +thousand feet. Like the Lower Old Red Sandstones of Cromarty and Moray, +the red arenaceous strata occur in thick beds, separated from each other +by bands of a grayish-colored stratified clay, on the planes of which I +could trace with great distinctness ripple markings; but in vain did I +explore their numerous folds for the plates, scales, and fucoid +impressions which abound in the gray argillaceous beds of the shores of +the Moray and Cromarty Friths. It would, however, be rash to pronounce +them non-fossiliferous, after the hasty search of a single +morning,--unpardonably so in one who had spent very many mornings in +putting to the question the gray stratified beds of Ross and Cromarty, +ere he succeeded in extorting from them the secret of their organic +riches. + +We set out about half-past ten for Scuir More, through the Red Sandstone +valley in which Loch Scresort terminates, with one of Mr. Swanson's +people, a young active lad of twenty, for our guide. In passing upwards +for nearly a mile along the stream that falls into the upper part of the +loch, and lays bare the strata, we saw no change in the character of +the sandstone. Red arenaceous beds of great thickness alternate with +grayish-colored bands, composed of a ripple-marked micaceous slate and a +stratified clay. For a depth of full three thousand feet, and I know not +how much more,--for I lacked time to trace it further,--the deposit +presents no other variety: the thick red bed of at least a hundred yards +succeeds the thin gray band of from three to six feet, and is succeeded +by a similar gray band in turn. The ripple-marks I found as sharply +relieved in some of the folds as if the wavy undulations to which they +owed their origin had passed over them within the hour. The +comparatively small size of their alternating ridges and furrows give +evidence that the waters beneath which they had formed had been of no +very profound depth. In the upper part of the valley, which is bare, +trackless, and solitary, with a high monotonous sandstone ridge bounding +it on the one side, and a line of gloomy trap-hills rising over it on +the other, the edges of the strata, where they protrude through the +mingled heath and moss, exhibit the mysterious scratchings and +polishings now so generally connected with the glacial theory of +Agassiz. The scratchings run in nearly the line of the valley, which +exhibits no trace of moraines; and they seem to have been produced +rather by the operation of those extensively developed causes, whatever +their nature, that have at once left their mark on the sides and summits +of some of our highest hills, and the rocks and boulders of some of our +most extended plains, than by the agency of forces limited to the +locality. They testify, Agassiz would perhaps say, not regarding the +existence of some local glacier that descended from the higher grounds +into the valley, but respecting the existence of the great polar +glacier. I felt, however, in this bleak and solitary hollow, with the +grooved and polished platforms at my feet, stretching away amid the +heath, like flat tombstones in a graveyard, that I had arrived at one +geologic inscription to which I still wanted the key. The vesicular +structure of the traps on the one hand, identical with that of so many +of our modern lavas,--the ripple-markings of the arenaceous beds on the +other, indistinguishable from those of the sea-banks on our coasts,--the +upturned strata and the overlying trap,--told all their several stories +of fire, or wave, or terrible convulsion, and told them simply and +clearly; but here was a story not clearly told. It summoned up doubtful, +ever-shifting visions,--now of a vast ice continent, abutting on this +far isle of the Hebrides from the Pole, and trampling heavily over +it,--now of the wild rush of a turbid, mountain-high flood breaking in +from the west, and hurling athwart the torn surface, rocks, and stones, +and clay,--now of a dreary ocean rising high along the hills, and +bearing onward with its winds and currents, huge icebergs, that now +brushed the mountain-sides, and now grated along the bottom of the +submerged valleys. The inscription on the polished surfaces, with its +careless mixture of groove and scratch, is an inscription of very +various readings. + +We passed along a transverse hollow, and then began to ascend a +hill-side, from the ridge of which the water sheds to the opposite shore +of the island, and on which we catch our first glimpse of Scuir More, +standing up over the sea, like a pyramid shorn of its top. A brown +lizard, nearly five inches in length, startled by our approach, ran +hurriedly across the path; and our guide, possessed by the general +Highland belief that the creature is poisonous, and injures cattle, +struck at it with a switch, and cut it in two immediately behind the +hinder legs. The upper half, containing all that anatomists regard as +the vitals, heart, brain, and viscera, all the main nerves, and all the +larger arteries, lay stunned by the blow, as if dead; nor did it +manifest any signs of vitality so long as we remained beside it; whereas +the lower half, as if the whole life of the animal had retired into +_it_, continued dancing upon the moss for a full minute after, like a +young eel scooped out of some stream, and thrown upon the bank; and then +lay wriggling and palpitating for about half a minute more. There are +few things more inexplicable in the province of the naturalist than the +phenomenon of what may be termed divided life,--vitality broken into +two, and yet continuing to exist as vitality in both the dissevered +pieces. We see in the nobler animals mere glimpses of the +phenomenon,--mere indications of it, doubtfully apparent for at most a +few minutes. The blood drawn from the human arm by the lancet continues +to live in the cup until it has cooled and begun to coagulate; and when +head and body have parted company under the guillotine, both exhibit for +a brief space such unequivocal signs of life, that the question arose in +France during the horrors of the Revolution, whether there might not be +some glimmering of consciousness attendant at the same time on the +fearfully opening and shutting eyes and mouth of the one, and the +beating heart and jerking neck of the other. The lower we descend in the +scale of being, the more striking the instances which we receive of this +divisibility of the vital principle. I have seen the two halves of the +heart of a ray pulsating for a full quarter of an hour after they had +been separated from the body and from each other. The blood circulates +in the hind leg of a frog for many minutes after the removal of the +heart, which meanwhile keeps up an independent motion of its own. +Vitality can be so divided in the earthworm, that, as demonstrated by +the experiments of Spalanzani, each of the severed parts carries life +enough away to set it up as an independent animal; while the polypus, a +creature of still more imperfect organization, and with the vivacious +principle more equally diffused over it, may be multiplied by its pieces +nearly as readily as a gooseberry bush by its slips. It was sufficiently +curious, however, to see, in the case of this brown lizard, the least +vital half of the creature so much more vivacious, apparently, than the +half which contained the heart and brain. It is not improbable, however, +that the presence of these organs had only the effect of rendering the +upper portion which contained them more capable of being thrown into a +state of insensibility. A blow dealt one of the vertebrata on the head +at once renders it insensible. It is after this mode the fisherman kills +the salmon captured in his wear, and a single blow, when well directed, +is always sufficient; but no single blow has the same effect on the +earthworm; and here it was vitality in the inferior portion of the +reptile,--the earthworm portion of it, if I may so speak,--that refused +to participate in the state of syncope into which the vitality of the +superior portion had been thrown. The nice and delicate vitality of the +brain seems to impart to the whole system in connection with it an +aptitude for dying suddenly,--a susceptibility of instant death, which +would be wanting without it. The heart of the rabbit continues to beat +regularly long after the brain has been removed by careful excision, if +respiration be artificially kept up; but if, instead of amputating the +head, the brain be crushed in its place by a sudden blow of a hammer, +the heart ceases its motion at once. And such seemed to be the principle +illustrated here. But why the agonized dancing on the sward of the +inferior part of the reptile?--why its after painful writhing and +wriggling? The young eel scooped from the stream, whose motions it +resembled, is impressed by terror, and can feel pain; was _it_ also +impressed by terror, or susceptible of suffering? We see in the case of +both exactly the same signs,--the dancing, the writhing, the wriggling; +but are we to interpret them after the same manner? In the small +red-headed earthworm divided by Spalanzani, that in three months got +upper extremities to its lower part, and lower extremities, in as many +weeks, to its upper part, the dividing blow must have dealt duplicate +feelings,--pain and terror to the portion below, and pain and terror to +the portion above,--so far, at least, as a creature so low in the scale +was susceptible of these feelings; but are we to hold that the leaping, +wriggling tail of the reptile possessed in any degree a similar +susceptibility? _I_ can propound the riddle, but who shall resolve it? +It may be added, that this brown lizard was the only recent saurian I +chanced to see in the Hebrides, and that, though large for its kind, its +whole bulk did not nearly equal that of a single vertebral joint of the +fossil saurians of Eigg. The reptile, since his deposition from the +first place in the scale of creation, has sunk sadly in those parts: the +ex-monarch has become a low plebeian. + +We came down upon the coast through a swampy valley, terminating in the +interior in a frowning wall of basalt, and bounded on the south, where +it opens to the sea, by the Scuir More. The Scuir is a precipitous +mountain, that rises from twelve to fifteen hundred feet direct over the +beach. M'Culloch describes it as inaccessible, and states that it is +only among the debris at its base that its heliotropes can be procured; +but the distinguished mineralogist must have had considerably less skill +in climbing rocks than in describing them, as, indeed, some of his +descriptions, though generally very admirable, abundantly testify. I am +inclined to infer from his book, after having passed over much of the +ground which he describes, that he must have been a man of the type so +well hit off by Burns in his portrait of Captain Grose,--round, rosy, +short-legged, quick of eye but slow of foot, quite as indifferent a +climber as Bailie Nicol Jarvie, and disposed at times, like the elderly +gentleman drawn by Crabbe, to prefer the view at the hill-foot to the +prospect from its summit. I found little difficulty in scaling the sides +of Scuir More for a thousand feet upwards,--in one part by a route +rarely attempted before,--and in ensconcing myself among the +bloodstones. They occur in the amygdaloidal trap of which the upper part +of the hill is mainly composed, in great numbers, and occasionally in +bulky masses; but it is rare to find other than small specimens that +would be recognized as of value by the lapidary. The inclosing rock must +have been as thickly vesicular in its original state as the scoria of a +glass-house; and all the vesicles, large and small, like the retorts and +receivers of a laboratory, have been vessels in which some curious +chemical process has been carried on. Many of them we find filled with a +white semi-translucent or opaque chalcedony; many more with a pure green +earth, which, where exposed to the bleaching influences of the weather, +exhibits a fine verdigris hue, but which in the fresh fracture is +generally of an olive green, or of a brownish or reddish color. I have +never yet seen a rock in which this earth was so abundant as in the +amygdaloid of Scuir More. For yards together in some places we see it +projecting from the surface in round globules, that very much resemble +green peas, and that occur as thickly in the inclosing mass as pebbles +in an Old Red Sandstone conglomerate. The heliotrope has formed among it +in centres, to which the chalcedony seems to have been drawn, as if by +molecular attraction. We find a mass, varying from the size of a walnut +to that of a man's head, occupying some larger vesicle or crevice of the +amygdaloid, and all the smaller vesicles around it, for an inch or two, +filled with what we may venture to term satellite heliotropes, some of +them as minute as grains of wild mustard, and all of them more or less +earthy, generally in proportion to their distance from the first formed +heliotrope in the middle. No one can see them in their place in the +rock, with the abundant green earth all around, and the chalcedony, in +its uncolored state, filling up so many of the larger cavities, without +acquiescing in the conclusion respecting the origin of the gem first +suggested by Werner, and afterwards adopted and illustrated by +M'Culloch. The heliotrope is merely a chalcedony, stained in the forming +with an infusion of green earth, as the colored waters in the +apothecary's window are stained by the infusions, vegetable and mineral, +from which they derive their ornamental character. The red mottlings +which so heighten the beauty of the stone occur in comparatively few of +the specimens of Scuir More. They are minute jasperous formations, +independent of the inclosing mass; and, from their resemblance to +streaks and spots of blood, suggest the name by which the heliotrope is +popularly known. I succeeded in making up, among the crags, a set of +specimens curiously illustrative of the origin of the gem. One specimen +consists of white, uncolored chalcedony; a second, of a rich +verdigris-hued green earth; a third, of chalcedony barely tinged with +green; a fourth, of chalcedony tinged just a shade more deeply; a fifth, +tinged more deeply still; a sixth, of a deep green on one side, and +scarce at all colored on the other; and a seventh, dark and richly +toned,--a true bloodstone,--thickly streaked and mottled with red +jasper. In the chemical process that rendered the Scuir More a mountain +of gems there were two deteriorating circumstances, which operated to +the disadvantage of its larger heliotropes: the green earth, as if +insufficiently stirred in the mixing, has gathered, in many of them, +into minute soft globules, like air-bubbles in glass, that render them +valueless for the purposes of the lapidary, by filling them all over +with little cavities; and in not a few of the others, an infiltration of +lime, that refused to incorporate with the chalcedonic mass, exists in +thin glassy films and veins, that, from their comparative softness, have +a nearly similar effect with the impalpable green earth in roughing the +surface under the burnisher. + +We find figured by M'Culloch, in his "Western Islands," the internal +cavity of a pebble of Scuir More, which he picked up on the beach below, +and which had been formed evidently within one of the larger vesicles of +the amygdaloid. He describes it as curiously illustrative of a various +chemistry; the outer crust is composed of a pale-zoned agate, inclosing +a cavity, from the upper side of which there depends a group of +chalcedonic stalactites, some of them, as in ancient spar caves, +reaching to the floor; and bearing on its under side a large crystal of +carbonate of lime, that the longer stalactites pass through. In the +vesicle in which this hollow pebble was formed three consecutive +processes must have gone on. First, a process of infiltration coated the +interior all around with layer after layer, now of one mineral +substance, now of another, as a plasterer coats over the sides and +ceiling of a room with successive layers of lime, putty, and stucco; and +had this process gone on, the whole cell would have been filled with a +pale-zoned agate. But it ceased, and a new process began. A chalcedonic +infiltration gradually entered from above; and, instead of coating over +the walls, roof, and floor, it hardened into a group of spear-like +stalactites, that lengthened by slow degrees, till some of them had +traversed the entire cavity from top to bottom. And then this second +process ceased like the first, and a third commenced. An infiltration +of lime took place; and the minute calcareous molecules, under the +influence of the law of crystallization, built themselves up on the +floor into a large smooth-sided rhomb, resembling a closed sarcophagus +resting in the middle of some Egyptian cemetery. And then, the limestone +crystal completed, there ensued no after change. As shown by some other +specimens, however, there was a yet farther process: a pure quartzose +deposition took place, that coated not a few of the calcareous rhombs +with sprigs of rock-crystal. I found in the Scuir More several cellular +agates in which similar processes had gone on,--none of them quite so +fine, however, as the one figured by M'Culloch; but there seemed no lack +of evidence regarding the strange and multifarious chemistry that had +been carried on in the vesicular cavities of this mountain, as in the +retorts of some vast laboratory. Here was a vesicle filled with green +earth,--there a vesicle filled with calcareous spar,--yonder a vesicle +crusted round on a thin chalcedonic shell with rock-crystal,--in one +cavity an agate had been elaborated, in another a heliotrope, in a third +a milk-white chalcedony, in a fourth a jasper. On what principle, and +under what direction, have results so various taken place in vesicles of +the same rock, that in many instances occur scarce half an inch apart? +Why, for instance, should that vesicle have elaborated only green earth, +and the vesicle separated from it by a partition barely a line in +thickness, have elaborated only chalcedony? Why should this chamber +contain only a quartzose compound of oxygen and silica, and that second +chamber beside it contain only a calcareous compound of lime and +carbonic acid? What law directed infiltrations so diverse to seek out +for themselves vesicles in such close neighborhood, and to keep, in so +many instances, each to his own vesicle? I can but state the +problem,--not solve it. The groups of heliotropes clustered each around +its bulky centrical mass seem to show that the principle of molecular +attraction may be operative in very dense mediae,--in a hard amygdaloidal +trap even; and it seems not improbable, that to this law, which draws +atom to its kindred atom, as clansmen of old used to speed at the +mustering signal to their gathering place, the various chemistry of the +vesicles may owe its variety. + +I shall attempt stating the chemical problem furnished by the vesicles +here in a mechanical form. Let us suppose that every vesicle was a +chamber furnished with a door, and that beside every door there watched, +as in the draught doors of our coal-pits, some one to open and shut it, +as circumstances might require. Let us suppose further, that for a +certain time an infusion of green earth pervaded the surrounding mass, +and percolated through it, and that every door was opened to receive a +portion of the infusion. We find that no vesicle wants its coating of +this earthy mineral. The coating received, however, one-half the doors +shut, while the other half remained agap, and filled with green earth +entirely. Next followed a series of alternate infusions of chalcedony, +jasper, and quartz; many doors opened and received some two or three +coatings, that form around the vesicles skull-like shells of agate, and +then shut; a few remained open, and became as entirely occupied with +agate as many of the previous ones had become filled with green earth. +Then an ample infusion of chalcedony pervaded the mass. Numerous doors +again opened; some took in a portion of the chalcedony, and then shut; +some remained open, and became filled with it; and many more that had +been previously filled by the green earth opened their doors again, and +the chalcedony pervading the green porous mass, converted it into +heliotrope. Then an infusion of lime took place. Doors opened, many of +which had been hitherto shut, save for a short time, when the green +earth infusion obtained, and became filled with lime; other doors +opened for a brief space, and received lime enough to form a few +crystals. Last of all, there was a pure quartzose infusion, and doors +opened, some for a longer time, some for a shorter, just as on previous +occasions. Now, by mechanical means of this character,--by such an +arrangement of successive infusions, and such a device of shutting and +opening of doors,--the phenomena exhibited by the vesicles could be +produced. There is no difficulty in working the problem mechanically, if +we be allowed to assume in our data successive infusions, well-fitted +doors, and watchful door-keepers; and if any one can work it +chemically,--certainly without door-keepers, but with such doors and +such infusions as he can show to have existed,--he shall have cleared up +the mystery of the Scuir More. I have given their various cargoes to all +its many vesicles by mechanical means, at no expense of ingenuity +whatever. Are there any of my readers prepared to give it to them by +means purely chemical? + +There is a solitary house in the opening of the valley, over which the +Scuir More stands sentinel,--a house so solitary, that the entire +breadth of the island intervenes between it and the nearest human +dwelling. It is inhabited by a shepherd and his wife,--the sole +representatives in the valley of a numerous population, long since +expatriated to make way for a few flocks of sheep, but whose ranges of +little fields may still be seen green amid the heath on both sides, for +nearly a mile upwards from the opening. After descending along the +precipices of the Scuir, we struck across the valley, and, on scaling +the opposite slope sat down on the summit to rest us, about a hundred +yards over the house of the shepherd. He had seen us from below, when +engaged among the bloodstones, and had seen, withal, that we were not +coming his way; and, "on hospitable thoughts intent," he climbed to +where we sat, accompanied by his wife, she bearing a vast bowl of milk, +and he a basket of bread and cheese. And we found the refreshment most +seasonable, after our long hours of toil, and with a rough journey still +before us. It is an excellent circumstance, that hospitality grows best +where it is most needed. In the thick of men it dwindles and disappears, +like fruits in the thick of a wood; but where man is planted sparsely, +it blossoms and matures, like apples on a standard or espalier. It +flourishes where the inn and the lodging-house cannot exist, and dies +out where they thrive and multiply. + +We reached the cross valley in the interior of the island about half an +hour before sunset. The evening was clear, calm, golden-tinted; even +wild heaths and rude rocks had assumed a flush of transient beauty; and +the emerald-green patches on the hill-sides, barred by the plough +lengthwise, diagonally, and transverse, had borrowed an aspect of soft +and velvety richness, from the mellowed light and the broadening +shadows. All was solitary. We could see among the deserted fields the +grass-grown foundations of cottages razed to the ground; but the valley, +more desolate than that which we had left, had not even its single +inhabited dwelling: it seemed as if man had done with it forever. The +island, eighteen years before, had been divested of its inhabitants, +amounting at the time to rather more than four hundred souls, to make +way for one sheep-farmer and eight thousand sheep. All the aborigines of +Rum crossed the Atlantic; and at the close of 1828, the entire +population consisted of but the sheep-farmer, and a few shepherds, his +servants; the island of Rum reckoned up scarce a single family at this +period for every five square miles of area which it contained. But +depopulation on so extreme a scale was found inconvenient; the place had +been rendered too thoroughly a desert for the comfort of the occupant; +and on the occasion of a clearing which took place shortly after in +Skye, he accommodated some ten or twelve of the ejected families with +sites for cottages, and pasturage for a few cows, on the bit of morass +beside Loch Scresort, on which I had seen their humble dwellings. But +the whole of the once-peopled interior remains a wilderness, without +inhabitant,--all the more lonely in its aspect from the circumstance +that the solitary valleys, with their plough-furrowed patches, and their +ruined heaps of stone, open upon shores every whit as solitary as +themselves, and that the wide untrodden sea stretches drearily around. +The armies of the insect world were sporting in the light this evening +by millions; a brown stream that runs through the valley yielded an +incessant popling sound, from the myriads of fish that were ceaselessly +leaping in the pools, beguiled by the quick glancing wings of green and +gold that fluttered over them; along a distant hill-side there ran what +seemed the ruins of a gray-stone fence, erected, says tradition, in a +remote age, to facilitate the hunting of the deer; there were fields on +which the heath and moss of the surrounding moorlands were fast +encroaching, that had borne many a successive harvest; and prostrate +cottages, that had been the scenes of christenings, and bridals, and +blythe new-year's days;--all seemed to bespeak the place a fitting +habitation for man, in which not only the necessaries, but also a few of +the luxuries of life, might be procured; but in the entire prospect not +a man nor a man's dwelling could the eye command. The landscape was one +without figures. I do not much like extermination carried out so +thoroughly and on system;--it seems bad policy; and I have not succeeded +in thinking any the better of it though assured by economists that there +are more than people enough in Scotland still. There are, I believe, +more than enough in our workhouses,--more than enough on our +pauper-rolls,--more than enough huddled up, disreputable, useless, and +unhappy, in the miasmatic alleys and typhoid courts of our large towns; +but I have yet to learn how arguments for local depopulation are to be +drawn from facts such as these. A brave and hardy people, favorably +placed for the development of all that is excellent in human nature, +form the glory and strength of a country;--a people sunk into an abyss +of degradation and misery, and in which it is the whole tendency of +external circumstances to sink them yet deeper, constitute its weakness +and its shame; and I cannot quite see on what principle the ominous +increase which is taking place among us in the worse class, is to form +our solace or apology for the wholesale expatriation of the better. It +did not seem as if the depopulation of Rum had tended much to any one's +advantage. The single sheep-farmer who had occupied the holdings of so +many had been unfortunate in his speculations, and had left the island: +the proprietor, his landlord, seemed to have been as little fortunate as +the tenant, for the island itself was in the market; and a report went +current at the time, that it was on the eve of being purchased by some +wealthy Englishman, who purposed converting it into a deer-forest. How +strange a cycle! Uninhabited originally save by wild animals, it became +at an early period a home of men, who, as the gray wall on the hill-side +testified, derived, in part at least, their sustenance from the chase. +They broke in from the waste the furrowed patches on the slopes of the +valleys,--they reared herds of cattle and flocks of sheep,--their number +increased to nearly five hundred souls,--they enjoyed the average +happiness of human creatures in the present imperfect state of +being,--they contributed their portion of hardy and vigorous manhood to +the armies of the country,--and a few of their more adventurous spirits, +impatient of the narrow bounds which confined them, and a course of +life little varied by incident, emigrated to America. Then came the +change of system so general in the Highlands; and the island lost all +its original inhabitants, on a wool and mutton speculation,--inhabitants, +the descendants of men who had chased the deer on its hills five hundred +years before, and who, though they recognized some wild island lord as +their superior, and did him service, had regarded the place as indisputably +their own. And now yet another change was on the eve of ensuing, and the +island was to return to its original state, as a home of wild animals, +where a few hunters from the mainland might enjoy the chase for a month or +two every twelvemonth, but which could form no permanent place of human +abode. Once more, a strange and surely most melancholy cycle! + +There was light enough left, as we reached the upper part of Loch +Scresort, to show us a shoal of small silver-coated trout, leaping by +scores at the effluence of the little stream along which we had set out +in the morning on our expedition. There was a net stretched across where +the play was thickest; and we learned that the haul of the previous tide +had amounted to several hundreds. On reaching the Betsey, we found a +pail and basket laid against the companion-head,--the basket containing +about two dozen small trout,--the minister's unsolicited teind of the +morning draught; the pail filled with razor-fish of great size. The +people of my friend are far from wealthy; there is scarce any +circulating medium in Rum; and the cottars in Eigg contrive barely +enough to earn at the harvest in the Lowlands money sufficient to clear +with their landlord at rent-day. Their contributions for ecclesiastical +purposes make no great figure, therefore, in the lists of the +Sustentation Fund. But of what they have they give willingly and in a +kindly spirit; and if baskets of small trout, or pailfuls of spout-fish, +went current in the Free Church, there would, I am certain, be a per +centage of both the fish and the mollusc, derived from the Small Isles, +in the half-yearly sustentation dividends. We found the supply of +both,--especially as provisions were beginning to run short in the +lockers of the Betsey,--quite deserving of our gratitude. The razor-fish +had been brought us by the worthy catechist of the island. He had gone +to the ebb in our special behalf, and had spent a tide in laboriously +filling the pail with these "treasures hid in the sand;" thoroughly +aware, like the old exiled puritan, who eked out his meals in a time of +scarcity with the oysters of New England, that even the razor-fish, +under this head, is included in the promises. There is a peculiarity in +the razor-fish of Rum that I have not marked in the razor-fish of our +eastern coasts. The gills of the animal, instead of bearing the general +color of its other parts, like those of the oyster, are of a deep green +color, resembling, when examined by the microscope, the fringe of a +green curtain. + +We were told by John Stewart, that the expatriated inhabitants of Rum +used to catch trout by a simple device of ancient standing, which +preceded the introduction of nets into the island, and which, it is +possible, may in other localities have not only preceded the use of the +net, but may have also suggested it: it had at least the appearance of +being a first beginning of invention in this direction. The islanders +gathered large quantities of heath, and then tying it loosely into +bundles, and stripping it of its softer leafage, they laid the bundles +across the stream on a little mound held down by stones, with the tops +of the heath turned upwards to the current. The water rose against the +mound for a foot or eighteen inches, and then murmured over and through, +occasioning an expansion among the hard elastic sprays. Next a party of +the islanders came down the stream, beating the banks and pools, and +sending a still thickening shoal of trout before them, that, on +reaching the miniature dam formed by the bundles, darted forward for +shelter, as if to a hollow bank, and stuck among the slim hard branches, +as they would in the meshes of a net. The stones were then hastily +thrown off,--the bundles pitched ashore,--the better fish, to the amount +not unfrequently of several scores, secured,--and the young fry returned +to the stream, to take care of themselves, and grow bigger. We fared +richly this evening, after our hard day's labor, on tea and trout; and +as the minister had to attend a meeting of the Presbytery of Skye on the +following Wednesday, we sailed next morning for Glenelg, whence he +purposed taking the steamer for Portree. Winds were light and baffling, +and the currents, like capricious friends, neutralized at one time the +assistance which they lent us at another. It was dark night ere we had +passed Isle Ornsay, and morning broke as we cast anchor in the Bay of +Glenelg. At ten o'clock the steamer heaved-to in the bay to land a few +passengers, and the minister went on board, leaving me in charge of the +Betsey, to follow him, when the tide set in, through the Kyles of Skye. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + Kyles of Skye--A Gneiss District--Kyle Rhea--A Boiling Tide--A + "Take" of Sillocks--The Betsey's "Paces"--In the Bay at + Broadford--Rain--Island of Pabba--Description of the Island--Its + Geological Structure--Astrea--Polypifers--_Gryphaea incurva_--Three + groups of Fossils in the Lias of Skye--Abundance of the + Petrifactions of Pabba--Scenery--Pabba a "piece of smooth, level + England"--Fossil Shells of Pabba--Voyage resumed--Kyle Akin--Ruins + of Castle Maoil--A "Thornback" Dinner--The Bunch of Deep Sea + Tangle--The Caileach Stone--Kelp Furnaces--Escape of the Betsey + from sinking. + + +No sailing vessel attempts threading the Kyles of Skye from the south in +the face of an adverse tide. The currents of Kyle Rhea care little for +the wind-filled sail, and battle at times, on scarce unequal terms, with +the steam-propelled paddle. The Toward Castle this morning had such a +struggle to force her way inwards, as may be seen maintained at the door +of some place of public meeting during the heat of some agitating +controversy, when seat and passage within can hold no more, and a +disappointed crowd press eagerly for admission from without. Viewed from +the anchoring place at Glenelg, the opening of the Kyle presents the +appearance of the bottom of a landlocked bay;--the hills of Skye seem +leaning against those of the mainland: and the tide-buffeted steamer +looked this morning as if boring her way into the earth, like a +disinterred mole, only at a rate vastly slower. First, however, with a +progress resembling that of the minute-hand of a clock, the bows +disappeared amid the heath, then the midships, then the quarter-deck and +stern, and then, last of all, the red tip of the sun-brightened +union-jack that streamed gaudily behind. I had at least two hours +before me ere the Betsey might attempt weighing anchor; and, that they +might leave some mark, I went and spent them ashore in the opening of +Glenelg,--a gneiss district, nearly identical in structure with the +district of Knock and Isle Ornsay. The upper part of the valley is bare +and treeless, but not such its character where it opens to the sea; the +hills are richly wooded; and cottages, and cornfields, with here and +there a reach of the lively little river, peep out from among the trees. +A group of tall roofless buildings, with a strong wall in front, form +the central point in the landscape; these are the dismantled Berera +Barracks, built, like the line of forts in the great Caledonian +Valley,--Fort George, Fort Augustus, and Fort William,--to overawe the +Highlands at a time when the loyalty of the Highlander pointed to a king +beyond the water; but all use for them has long gone by, and they now +lie in dreary ruin,--mere sheltering places for the toad and the bat. I +found in a loose silt on the banks of the river, at some little distance +below tide-mark, a bed of shells and coral, which might belong, I at +first supposed, to some secondary formation, but which I ascertained, on +examination, to be a mere recent deposit, not so old by many centuries +as our last raised sea-beaches. There occurs in various localities on +these western coasts, especially on the shores of the island of Pabba, a +sprig coral, considerably larger in size than any I have elsewhere seen +in Scotland; and it was from its great abundance in this bed of silt +that I was at first led to deem the deposit an ancient one. + +We weighed anchor about noon, and entered the opening of Kyle Rhea. +Vessel after vessel, to the number of eight or ten in all, had been +arriving in the course of the morning, and dropping anchor, nearer the +opening or farther away, each according to its sailing ability, to await +the turn of the tide; and we now found ourselves one of the components +of a little fleet, with some five or six vessels sweeping up the Kyle +before us, and some three or four driving on behind. Never, except +perhaps in a Highland river big in flood, have I seen such a tide. It +danced and wheeled, and came boiling in huge masses from the bottom; and +now our bows heaved abruptly round in one direction, and now they jerked +as suddenly round in another; and, though there blew a moderate breeze +at the time, the helm failed to keep the sails steadily full. But +whether our sheets bellied out, or flapped right in the wind's eye, on +we swept in the tideway, like a cork caught during a thunder shower in +one of the rapids of the High Street. At one point the Kyle is little +more than a quarter of a mile in breadth; and here, in the powerful eddy +which ran along the shore, we saw a group of small fishing-boats +pursuing a shoal of sillocks in a style that blent all the liveliness of +the chase with the specific interest of the angle. The shoal, restless +as the tides among which it disported, now rose in the boilings of one +eddy, now beat the water into foam amid the stiller dimplings of +another. The boats hurried from spot to spot wherever the quick +glittering scales appeared. For a few seconds, rods would be cast thick +and fast, as if employed in beating the water, and captured fish glanced +bright to the sun; and then the take would cease, and the play rise +elsewhere, and oars would flash out amain, as the little fleet again +dashed into the heart of the shoal. As the Kyle widened, the force of +the current diminished, and sail and helm again became things of +positive importance. The wind blew a-head, steady though not strong; and +the Betsey, with companions in the voyage against which to measure +herself, began to show her paces. First she passed one bulky vessel, +then another: she lay closer to the wind than any of her fellows, glided +more quickly through the water, turned in her stays like Lady Betty in +a minuet; and, ere we had reached Kyle Akin, the fleet in the middle of +which we had started were toiling far behind us, all save one vessel, a +stately brig; and just as we were going to pass her too, she cast +anchor, to await the change of the tide, which runs from the west during +flood at Kyle Akin, as it runs from the east through Kyle Rhea. The wind +had freshened; and as it was now within two hours of full sea, the force +of the current had somewhat abated; and so we kept on our course, +tacking in scant room, however, and making but little way. A few vessels +attempted following us, but, after an inefficient tack or two, they fell +back on the anchoring ground, leaving the Betsey to buffet the currents +alone. Tack followed tack sharp and quick in the narrows, with an +iron-bound coast on either hand. We had frequent and delicate turning: +now we lost fifty yards, now we gained a hundred. John Stewart held the +helm; and as none of us had ever sailed the way before, I had the +vessel's chart spread out on the companion-head before me, and told him +when to wear and when to hold on his way,--at what places we might run +up almost to the rock edge, and at what places it was safest to give the +land a good offing. Hurrah for the Free Church yacht Betsey! and hurrah +once more! We cleared the Kyle, leaving a whole fleet tide-bound behind +us; and, stretching out at one long tack into the open sea, bore, at the +next, right into the bay at Broadford, where we cast anchor for the +night, within two hundred yards of the shore. Provisions were running +short; and so I had to make a late dinner this evening on some of the +razor-fish of Rum, topped by a dish of tea. But there is always rather +more appetite than food in the country;--such, at least, is the common +result under the present mode of distribution: the hunger overlaps and +outstretches the provision; and there was comfort in the reflection, +that with the razor-fish on which to fall back, it overlapped it but by +a very little on this occasion in the cabin of the Betsey. The +steam-boat passed southwards next morning, and I was joined by my friend +the minister a little before breakfast. + +The day was miserably bad: the rain continued pattering on the skylight, +now lighter, now heavier, till within an hour of sunset, when it ceased, +and a light breeze began to unroll the thick fogs from off the +landscape, volume after volume, like coverings from off a +mummy,--leaving exposed in the valley of the Lias a brown and cheerless +prospect of dark bogs and of debris-covered hills, streaked this evening +with downward lines of foam. The seaward view is more pleasing. The deep +russet of the interior we find bordered for miles along the edge of the +bay with a many-shaded fringe of green; and the smooth grassy island of +Pabba lies in the midst, a polished gem, all the more advantageously +displayed from the roughness of the surrounding setting. We took boat, +and explored the Lias in our immediate neighborhood till dusk. I had +spent several hours among its deposits when on my way to Portree, and +several hours more when on my journey across the country to the east +coast; but it may be well, for the sake of maintaining some continuity +of description, to throw together my various observations on the +formation, as if made at one time, and to connect them with my +exploration of Pabba, which took place on the following morning. The +rocks of Pabba belong to the upper part of the Lias; while the lower +part may be found leaning to the south, towards the Red Sandstones of +the Bay of Lucy. Taking what seems to be the natural order, I shall +begin with the base of the formation first. + +In the general indentation of the coast, in the opening of which the +island of Pabba lies somewhat like a long green steam-boat at anchor, +there is included a smaller indentation, known as the Bay or Cove of +Lucy. The central space in the cove is soft and gravelly; but on both +its sides it is flanked by low rocks, that stretch out into the sea in +long rectilinear lines, like the foundations of dry-stone fences. On the +south side the rocks are red; on the north they are of a bluish-gray +color; their hues are as distinct as those of the colored patches in a +map; and they represent geological periods that lie widely apart. The +red rocks we find laid down in most of our maps as Old Red, though I am +disposed to regard them as of a much higher antiquity than even that +ancient system; while the bluish-gray rocks are decidedly Liasic.[3] The +cove between represents a deep ditch-like hollow, which occurs in Skye, +both in the interior and on the sea-shore, in the line of boundary +betwixt the Red Sandstone and the Lias; and it "seems to have +originated," says M'Culloch, "in the decomposition of the exposed parts +of the formations at their junction." "Hence," he adds, "from the +wearing of the materials at the surface, a cavity has been produced, +which becoming subsequently filled with rubbish, and generally covered +over with a vegetable soil of unusual depth, effectually prevents a view +of the contiguous parts." The first strata exposed on the northern side +are the oldest Liasic rocks anywhere seen in Scotland. They are composed +chiefly of greenish-colored fissile sandstones and calciferous grits, in +which we meet a few fossils, very imperfectly preserved. But the +organisms increase as we go on. We see in passing, near a picturesque +little cottage,--the only one on the shores of the bay,--a crag of a +singularly rough appearance, that projects mole-like from the sward upon +the beach, and then descending abruptly to the level of the other +strata, runs out in a long ragged line into the sea. The stratum, from +two to three feet in thickness, of which it is formed, seems wholly +built up of irregularly-formed rubbly concretions, just as some of the +garden-walls in the neighborhood of Edinburgh are built of the rough +scoria of our glass-houses; and we find, on examination, that every +seeming concretion in the bed is a perfectly formed coral of the genus +Astrea. We have arrived at an entire bed of corals, all of one species. +Their surfaces, wherever they have been washed by the sea, are of great +beauty: nothing can be more irregular than the outline of each mass, and +yet scarce anything more regular than the sculpturings on every part of +it. We find them fretted over with polygons, like those of a honeycomb, +only somewhat less mathematically exact, and the centre of every polygon +contains its many-rayed star. It is difficult to distinguish between +species in some of the divisions of corals: one Astrea, recent or +extinct, is sometimes found so exceedingly like another of some very +different formation or period, that the more modern might almost be +deemed a lineal descendant of the more ancient species. With an eye to +the fact, I brought with me some characteristic specimens of this +Astrea[4] of the Lower Lias, which I have ranged side by side with the +Astreae of the Oolite I had found so abundant a twelvemonth before in the +neighborhood of Helmsdale. In some of the hand specimens, that present +merely a piece of polygonal surface, bounded by fractured sides, the +difference is not easily distinguishable: the polygonal depressions are +generally smaller in the Oolitic species, and shallower in the Liasic +one; but not unfrequently these differences disappear, and it is only +when compared in the entire unbroken coral that their specific +peculiarities acquire the necessary prominence. The Oolitic Astrea is of +much greater size than the Liasic one: it occurs not unfrequently in +masses of from two to three feet in diameter; and as its polygons are +tubes that converge to the footstalk on which it originally formed, it +presents in the average outline a fungous-like appearance; whereas in +the smaller Liasic coral, which rarely exceeds a foot in diameter, there +is no such general convergency of the tubes; and the form in one piece, +save that there is a certain degree of flatness common to all, bears no +resemblance to the form in another. Some of the recent Astreae are of +great beauty when inhabited by the living zoophites whose skeleton +framework they compose. Every polygonal star in the mass is the house of +a separate animal, that, when withdrawn into its cell, presents the +appearance of a minute flower, somewhat like a daisy stuck flat to the +surface, and that, when stretched out, resembles a small round tower, +with a garland of leaves bound round it atop for a cornice. The _Astrea +viridis_, a coral of the tropics, presents on a ground of velvety brown +myriads of deep green florets, that ever and anon start up from the +level in their tower-like shape, contract and expand their petals, and +then, shrinking back into their cells, straightway became florets again. +The Lower Lias presented in one of its opening scenes, in this part of +the world, appearances of similar beauty widely spread. For miles +together,--we know not how many,--the bottom of a clear shallow sea was +paved with living Astreae: every irregular rock-like coral formed a +separate colony of polypora, that, when in motion, presented the +appearance of continuous masses of many-colored life, and when at rest, +the places they occupied were more thickly studded with the living +florets than the richest and most flowery piece of pasture the reader +ever saw, with its violets or its daisies. And mile beyond mile this +scene of beauty stretched on through the shallow depths of the Liasic +sea. The calcareous framework of most of the recent Astreae are white; +but in the species referred to,--the _Astrea viridis_,--it is of a +dark-brown color. It is not unworthy of remark, in connection with these +facts, that the Oolitic Astrea of Helmsdale occurs as a white, or, when +darkest, as a cream-colored petrifaction; whereas the Liasic Astrea of +Skye is invariably of a deep earthy hue. The one was probably a white, +the other a dingy-colored coral. + +The Liasic bed of Astreae existed long enough here to attain a thickness +of from two to three feet. Mass rose over mass,--the living upon the +dead,--till at length, by a deposit of mingled mud and sand,--the +effect, mayhap, of some change of currents, induced we know not +how,--the innumerable polypedes of the living surface were buried up and +killed, and then, for many yards, layer after layer of a calciferous +grit was piled over them. The fossils of the grit are few and ill +preserved; but we occasionally find in it a coral similar to the Astrea +of the bed below, and, a little higher up, in an impure limestone, +specimens, in rather indifferent keeping, of a genus of polypifer which +somewhat resembles the Turbinolia of the Mountain Limestone. It presents +in the cross section the same radiated structure as the _Turbinolia +fungites_, and nearly the same furrowed appearance in the longitudinal +one; but, seen in the larger specimens, we find that it was a branched +coral, with obtuse forky boughs, in each of which, it is probable, from +their general structure, there lived a single polype. It may have been +the resemblance which these bear, when seen in detached branches, to the +older Caryophyllia, taken in connection with the fact that the deposit +in which they occur rests on the ancient Red Sandstone of the district, +that led M'Culloch to question whether this fossiliferous formation had +not nearly as clear a claim to be regarded as an analogue of the +Carboniferous Limestone of England as of its Lias; and hence he +contented himself with terming it simply the Gryphite Limestone. Sir R. +Murchison, whose much more close and extensive acquaintance with fossils +enabled him to assign to the deposit its true place, was struck, +however, with the general resemblance of its polypifers to "those of the +Madreporite Limestone of the Carboniferous series." These polypifers +occur in only the lower Lias of Skye.[5] I found no corals in its higher +beds, though these are charged with other fossils, more characteristic +of the formation, in vast abundance. In not a few of the middle strata, +composed of a mud-colored fissile sandstone, the gryphites lie as +thickly as currants in a Christmas cake; and as they weather white, +while the stone in which they are embedded retains its dingy hue, they +somewhat remind one of the white-lead tears of the undertaker mottling a +hatchment of sable. In a fragment of the dark sandstone, six inches by +seven, which I brought with me, I reckon no fewer than twenty-two +gryphites; and it forms but an average specimen of the bed from which I +detached it. By far the most abundant species is that not inelegant +shell so characteristic of the formation, the _Gryphaea incurva_. We find +detached specimens scattered over the beach by hundreds, mixed up with +the remains of recent shells, as if the _Gryphaea incurva_ were a recent +shell too. They lie, bleached white by the weather, among the valves of +defunct oysters and dead buccinidae; and, from their resemblance to lamps +cast in the classic model, remind one, in the corners where they have +accumulated most thickly, of the old magician's stock in trade, who +wiled away the lamp of Aladdin from Aladdin's simple wife. The _Gryphaea +obliquita_ and _Gryphaea M'Cullochii_ also occur among these middle +strata of the Lias, though much less frequently than the other. We, +besides, found in them at least two species of Pecten, with two species +of Terebratula,--the one smooth, the other sulcated; a bivalve +resembling a Donax; another bivalve, evidently a Gervillia, though +apparently of a species not yet described; and the ill-preserved rings +of large Ammonites, from ten inches to a foot in diameter. Towards the +bottom of the bay the fossils again become more rare, though they +re-appear once more in considerable abundance as we pass along its +northern side; but in order to acquaint ourselves with the upper +organisms of the formation, we have to take boat and explore the +northern shores of Pabba. The Lias of Skye has its three distinct groups +of fossils: its lower coraline group, in which the Astrea described is +most abundant; its middle group, in which the _Gryphaea incurva_ occurs +by millions; and its upper group, abounding in Ammonites, Nautili, +Pinnae, and Serpulae. + +Friday made amends for the rains and fogs of its disagreeable +predecessor: the morning rose bright and beautiful, with just wind +enough to fill, and barely fill, the sail, hoisted high, with miser +economy, that not a breath might be lost; and, weighing anchor, and +shaking out all our canvass, we bore down on Pabba, to explore. This +island, so soft in outline and color, is formidably fenced round by +dangerous reefs; and, leaving the Betsey in charge of John Stewart and +his companion, to dodge on in the offing, I set out with the minister in +our little boat, and landed on the north-eastern side of the island, +beside a trap-dyke that served us as a pier. He would be a happy +geologist who, with a few thousands to spare, could call Pabba his own. +It contains less than a square mile of surface; and a walk of little +more than three miles and a half along the line where the waves break at +high water brings the traveller back to his starting point; and yet, +though thus limited in area, the petrifactions of its shores might of +themselves fill a museum. They rise by thousands and tens of thousands +on the exposed planes of its sea-washed strata, standing out in bold +relief, like sculpturings on ancient tombstones, at once mummies and +monuments,--the dead and the carved memorials of the dead. Every rock is +a tablet of hieroglyphics, with an ascertained alphabet; every rolled +pebble a casket with old pictorial records locked up within. Trap-dykes, +beyond comparison finer than those of the Water of Leith, which first +suggested to Hutton his theory, stand up like fences over the +sedimentary strata, or run out like moles far into the sea. The entire +island, too, so green, rich, and level, is itself a specimen +illustrative of the effect of geologic formation on scenery. We find its +nearest neighbor,--the steep, brown, barren island of Longa, which is +composed of the ancient Red Sandstone of the district,--differing as +thoroughly from it in aspect as a bit of granite differs from a bit of +clay-slate; and the whole prospect around, save the green Liasic strip +that lies along the bottom of the Bay of Broadford, exhibits, true to +its various components, Plutonic or sedimentary, a character of +picturesque roughness or bold sublimity. The only piece of smooth, level +England, contained in the entire landscape, is the fossil-mottled island +of Pabba. We were first struck, on landing this morning, by the great +number of Pinnae embedded in the strata,--shells varying from five to ten +inches in length,--one species of the common flat type, exemplified in +the existing _Pinna sulcata_, and another nearly quadrangular, in the +cross section, like the _Pinna lanceolata_ of the Scarborough limestone. +The quadrangular species is more deeply crisped outside than the +flat one. Both species bear the longitudinal groove in the centre, +and when broken across, are found to contain numerous smaller +shells,--Terebratulae of both the smooth and sulcated kinds, and a +species of minute smooth Pecten resembling the _Pecten demissus_, but +smaller. The Pinnae, ere they became embedded in the original sea-bottom, +long since hardened into rock around them, were, we find, dead shells, +into which, as into the dead open shells of our existing beaches, +smaller shells were washed by the waves. Our recent Pinnae are all +sedentary shells, some of them full two feet in length, fastened to +their places on their deep-sea floors by flowing silky byssi,--cables of +many strands,--of which beautiful pieces of dress, such as gloves and +hose, have been manufactured. An old French naturalist, the Abbe Le +Pluche, tells us that "the Pinna with its fleshy tongue" (foot),--a rude +inefficient looking implement for work so nice,--"spins such threads as +are more valuable than silk itself, and with which the most beautiful +stuffs that ever were seen have been made by Sicilian weavers." Gloves +made of the byssus of recent Pinnae may be seen in the British Museum. +Associated with the numerous Pinnae of Pabba we found a delicately-formed +Modiola, a small Ostrya, Plagiostoma, Terebratula, several species of +Pectens, a triangular univalve resembling a Trochus, innumerable groups +of Serpulae, and the star-like joints of Pentacrinites. The Gryphae are +also abundant, occurring in extensive beds; and Belemnites of various +species lie as thickly scattered over the rock as if they had been the +spindles of a whole kingdom thrown aside in consequence of some such +edict framed to put them down as that passed by the father of the +Sleeping Beauty. We find, among the detached masses of the beach, +specimens of Nautilus, which, though rarely perfect, are sufficiently so +to show the peculiarities of the shell; and numerous Ammonites project +in relief from almost every weathered plane of the strata. These last +shells, in the tract of shore which we examined, are chiefly of one +species,--the _Ammonites spinatus_,--one of which, considerably broken, +the reader may find figured in Sowerby's "Mineral Conchology," from a +specimen brought from Pabba sixteen years ago by Sir R. Murchison. It is +difficult to procure specimens tolerably complete. We find bits of outer +rings existing as limestone, with every rib sharply preserved, but the +rest of the fossil lost in the shale. I succeeded in finding but two +specimens that show the inner whorls. They are thickly ribbed; and the +chief peculiarity which they exhibit, not so directly indicated by Mr. +Sowerby's figure, is, that while the ribs of the outer whorl are broad +and deep, as in the _Ammonites obtusus_, they suddenly change their +character, and become numerous and narrow in the inner whorls, as in the +_Ammonites communis_. + +The tide began to flow, and we had to quit our explorations, and return +to the Betsey. The little wind had become less, and all the canvas we +could hang out enabled us to draw but a sluggish furrow. The stern of +the Betsey "wrought no buttons" on this occasion; but she had a good +tide under her keel; and ere the dinner-hour we had passed through the +narrows of Kyle Akin. The village of this name was designed by the late +Lord M'Donald for a great seaport town; but it refused to grow; and it +has since become a gentleman in a small way, and does nothing. It forms, +however, a handsome group of houses, pleasantly situated on a flat green +tongue of land, on the Skye side, just within the opening of the Kyle; +and there rises on an eminence beyond it a fine old tower, rent open, as +if by an earthquake, from top to bottom, which forms one of the most +picturesque objects I have almost ever seen in a landscape. There are +bold hills all around, and rocky islands, with the ceaseless rush of +tides in front; while the cloven tower, rising high over the shore, is +seen, in threading the Kyles, whether from the south or north, relieved +dark against the sky, as the central object in the vista. We find it +thus described by the Messrs. Anderson of Inverness, in their excellent +"Guide Book,"--by far the best companion of the kind with which the +traveller who sets himself to explore our Scottish Highlands can be +provided. "Close to the village of Kyle Akin are the ruins of an old +square keep, called Castle Muel or Maoil, the walls of which are of a +remarkable thickness. It is said to have been built by the daughter of a +Norwegian king, married to a Mackinnon or Macdonald, for the purpose of +levying an impost on all vessels passing the Kyles, excepting, says the +tradition, those of her own country. For the more certain exaction of +this duty, she is reported to have caused a strong chain to be stretched +across from shore to shore; and the spot in the rocks to which the +terminal links were attached is still pointed out." It was high time for +us to be home. The dinner hour came; but, in meet illustration of the +profound remark of Trotty-Veck, not the dinner. We had been in a cold +Moderate district, whence there came no half-dozens of eggs, or whole +dozens of trout, or pailfuls of razor-fish, and in which hard +cabin-biscuit cost us sixpence per pound. And now our stores were +exhausted, and we had to dine as best we could, on our last half-ounce +of tea, sweetened by our last quarter of a pound of sugar. I had marked, +however, a dried thornback hanging among the rigging. It had been there +nearly three weeks before, when I came first aboard, and no one seemed +to know for how many weeks previous; for as it had come to be a sort of +fixture in the vessel, it could be looked at without being seen. But +necessity sharpens the discerning faculty, and on this pressing +occasion I was fortunate enough to see it. It was straightway taken +down, skinned, roasted, and eaten; and, though rather rich in +ammonia,--a substance better suited to form the food of the organisms +that do not unite sensation to vitality, than organisms so high in the +scale as the minister and his friend,--we came deliberately to the +opinion, that on the whole, we could scarce have dined so well on one of +Major Bellenden's jack-boots,--"so thick in the soles," according to +Jenny Dennison, "forby being tough in the upper leather." The tide +failed us opposite the opening of Loch Alsh; the wind, long dying, at +length died out into a dead calm; and we cast anchor in ten fathoms +water, to wait the ebbing current that was to carry us through Kyle +Rhea. + +The ebb-tide set in about half an hour after sunset; and in weighing +anchor to float down the Kyle,--for we still lacked wind to sail down +it,--we brought up from below, on one of the anchor-flukes, an immense +bunch of deep-sea tangle, with huge soft fronds and long slender stems, +that had lain flat on the rocky bottom, and had here and there thrown +out roots along its length of stalk, to attach itself to the rock, in +the way the ivy attaches itself to the wall. Among the intricacies of +the true roots of the bunch, if one may speak of the true roots of an +alga, I reckoned from eighteen to twenty different forms of animal +life,--Flustrae, Sertulariae, Serpulae, Anomiae, Modiolae, Astarte, Annelida, +Crustacea, and Radiata. Among the Crustaceans I found a female crab of a +reddish-brown color, considerably smaller than the nail of my small +finger, but fully grown apparently, for the abdominal flap was loaded +with spawn; and among the Echinoderms, a brownish-yellow sea-urchin +about the size of a pistol-bullet, furnished with comparatively large +but thinly-set spines. There is a dangerous rock in the Kyle Rhea, the +Caileach stone, on which the Commissioners for the Northern Lighthouses +have stuck a bit of board about the size of a pot-lid, which, as it is +known to be there, and as no one ever sees it after sunset, is really +very effective, considering how little it must have cost the country, in +wrecking vessels. I saw one of its victims, the sloop of an honest +Methodist, in whose bottom the Caileach had knocked out a hole, +repairing at Isle Ornsay; and I was told, that if I wished to see more, +I had only just to wait a little. The honest Methodist, after looking +out in vain for the bit of board, was just stepping into the shrouds, to +try whether he could not see the rock on which the bit of board is +placed, when all at once his vessel found out both board and rock for +herself. We also had anxious looking out this evening for the bit of +board: one of us thought he saw it right a-head; and when some of the +others were trying to see it too, John Stewart succeeded in discovering +it half a pistol-shot astern. The evening was one of the loveliest. The +moon rose in cloudy majesty over the mountains of Glenelg, brightening +as it rose, till the boiling eddies around us curled on the darker +surface in pale circlets of light, and the shadow of the Betsey lay as +sharply defined on the brown patch of calm to the larboard as if it were +her portrait taken in black. Immediately at the water-edge, under a tall +dark hill, there were two smouldering fires, that now shot up a sudden +tongue of bright flame, and now dimmed into blood-red specks, and sent +thick strongly-scented trails of smoke athwart the surface of the Kyle. +We could hear, in the calm, voices from beside them, apparently those of +children; and learned that they indicated the places of two +kelp-furnaces,--things which have now become comparatively rare along +the coasts of the Hebrides. There was the low rush of tides all around, +and the distant voices from the shore, but no other sounds; and, dim in +the moonshine, we could see behind us several spectral-looking sails +threading their silent way through the narrows, like twilight ghosts +traversing some haunted corridor. + +It was late ere we reached the opening of Isle Ornsay; and as it was +still a dead calm we had to tug in the Betsey to the anchoring ground +with a pair of long sweeps. The minister pointed to a low-lying rock on +the left-hand side of the opening,--a favorite haunt of the seal. "I +took farewell of the Betsey there last winter," he said. "The night had +worn late, and was pitch dark; we could see before us scarce the length +of our bowsprit; not a single light twinkled from the shore; and, in +taking the bay, we ran bump on the skerry, and stuck fast. The water +came rushing in, and covered over the cabin-floor. I had Mrs. Swanson +and my little daughter aboard with me, with one of our servant-maids who +had become attached to the family, and insisted on following us from +Eigg; and, of course, our first care was to get them ashore. We had to +land them on the bare uninhabited island yonder, and a dreary enough +place it was at midnight, in winter, with its rocks, bogs, and heath, +and with a rude sea tumbling over the skerries in front; but it had at +least the recommendation of being safe, and the sky, though black and +wild, was not stormy. I had brought two lanterns ashore: the servant +girl, with the child in her lap, sat beside one of them, in the shelter +of a rock; while my wife, with the other, went walking up and down along +a piece of level sward yonder, waving the light, to attract notice from +the opposite side of the bay. But though it was seen from the windows of +my own house by an attached relative, it was deemed merely a +singularly-distinct apparition of Will o' the Wisp, and so brought us no +assistance. Meanwhile we had carried out a kedge astern of the Betsey, +as the sea was flowing at the time, to keep her from beating in over the +rocks; and then, taking our few movables ashore, we hung on till the +tide rose, and, with our boat alongside ready for escape, succeeded in +warping her into deep water, with the intention of letting her sink +somewhere beyond the influence of the surf, which, without fail, would +have broken her up on the skerry in a few hours, had we suffered her to +remain there. But though, when on the rock, the tide had risen as freely +over the cabin sole inside as over the crags without, in the deep water +the Betsey gave no sign of sinking. I went down to the cabin; the water +was knee-high on the floor, dashing against bed and locker, but it rose +no higher;--the enormous leak had stopped, we knew not how; and, setting +ourselves to the pump, we had in an hour or two a clear ship. The Betsey +is clinker-built below. The elastic oak planks had yielded inwards to +the pressure of the rock, tearing out the fastenings, and admitted the +tide at wide yawning seams; but no sooner was the pressure removed, than +out they sprung again into their places, like bows when the strings are +slackened; and when the carpenter came to overhaul, he found he had +little else to do than to remove a split plank, and to supply a few +dozens of drawn nails." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + Isle Ornsay--The Sabbath--A Sailor-minister's Sermon for + Sailors--The Scuir Sermon--Loch Carron--Groups of Moraines--A sheep + District--The Editor of the _Witness_ and the Establishment + Clergyman--Dingwall--Conon-side revisited--The Pond and its + Changes--New Faces--The Stonemason's Mark--The Burying Ground of + Urquhart--An old acquaintance--Property Qualification for Voting in + Scotland--Montgerald Sandstone Quarries--Geological Science in + Cromarty--The Danes at Cromarty--The Danish Professor and the "Old + Red Sandstone"--Harmonizing tendencies of Science. + + +The anchoring ground at Isle Ornsay was crowded with coasting vessels +and fishing boats; and when the Sabbath came round, no inconsiderable +portion of my friend's congregation was composed of sailors and +fishermen. His text was appropriate,--"He bringeth them into their +desired haven;" and as his sea-craft and his theology were alike +excellent, there were no incongruities in his allegory, and no defects +in his mode of applying it, and the seamen were hugely delighted. John +Stewart, though less a master of English than of many other things, told +me he was able to follow the minister from beginning to end,--a thing he +had never done before at an English preaching. The sea portion of the +sermon, he said, was very plain: it was about the helm, and the sails, +and the anchor, and the chart, and the pilot,--about rocks, winds, +currents, and safe harborage; and by attending to this simpler part of +it, he was led into the parts that were less simple, and so succeeded in +comprehending the whole. I would fain see this unique discourse, +preached by a sailor minister to a sailor congregation, preserved in +some permanent form, with at least one other discourse,--of which I +found trace in the island of Eigg, after the lapse of more than a +twelvemonth,--that had been preached about the time of the Disruption, +full in sight of the Scuir, with its impregnable hill-fort, and in the +immediate neighborhood of the cave of Frances, with its heaps of dead +men's bones. One note stuck fast to the islanders. In times of peril and +alarm, said the minister, the ancient inhabitants of the island had two +essentially different kinds of places in which they sought security; +they had the deep, unwholesome cave, shut up from the light and the +breath of heaven, and the tall rock summit, with its impregnable fort, +on which the sun shone and the wind blew. Much hardship might no doubt +be encountered on the one, when the sky was black with tempest, and +rains beat, or snows descended; but it was found associated with no +story of real loss or disaster,--it had kept safe all who had committed +themselves to it; whereas, in the close atmosphere of the other there +was warmth, and, after a sort, comfort; and on one memorable day of +trouble the islanders had deemed it the preferable sheltering place of +the two. And there survived mouldering skeletons and a frightful +tradition, to tell the history of their choice. Places of refuge of +these very opposite kinds, said the minister, continuing his allegory, +are not peculiar to your island; never was there a day or a place of +trial in which they did not advance their opposite claims: they are +advancing them even now all over the world. The one kind you find +described by one great prophet as low-lying "refuges of lies," over +which the desolating "scourge must pass," and which the destroying +"waters must overflow;" while the true character of the other may be +learned from another great prophet, who was never weary of celebrating +his "rock and his fortress." "Wit succeeds more from being happily +addressed," says Goldsmith, "than even from its native poignancy." If +my friend's allegory does not please quite as well in print and in +English as it did when delivered _viva voce_ in Gaelic, it should be +remembered that it was addressed to an out-door congregation, whose +minds were filled with the consequences of the Disruption,--that the +bones of _Uamh Fraingh_ lay within a few hundred yards of them,--and +that the Scuir, with the sun shining bright on its summit, rose tall in +the background, scarce a mile away. + +On Monday I spent several hours in reexploring the Lias of Lucy Bay and +its neighborhood, and then walked on to Kyle-Akin, where I parted from +my friend Mr. Swanson, and took boat for Loch Carron. The greater part +of the following day was spent in crossing the country to the east coast +in the mail-gig, through long dreary glens, and a fierce storm of wind +and rain. In the lower portion of the valley occupied by the river +Carron, I saw at least two fine groups of moraines. One of these, about +a mile and a half above the parish manse, marks the place where a +glacier, that had once descended from a hollow amid the northern range +of hills, had furrowed up the gravel and earth before it in long ridges, +which we find running nearly parallel to the road; the other group, +which lies higher up the valley, and seems of considerably greater +extent, indicates where one of those river-like glaciers that fill up +long hollows, and impel their irresistible flood downwards, slow as the +hour-hand of a time-piece, had terminated towards the sea. I could but +glance at the appearances as the gig drove past, and point them out to a +fellow passenger, the Establishment minister of----, remarking, at the +same time, how much more dreary the prospect must have seemed than even +it did to-day, though the fog was thick and the drizzle disagreeable, +when the lateral hollows on each side were blocked up with ice, and +overhanging glaciers, that ploughed the rock bare in their descent, +glistened on the bleak hill-sides. I wore a gray maud over a coat of +rough russet, with waist-coat and trowsers of plaid; and the minister, +who must have taken me, I suppose, for a southland shepherd looking out +for a farm, gave me much information of a kind I might have found +valuable had such been my condition and business, regarding the various +districts through which we passed. On one high-lying farm, the grass, he +said, was short and thin, but sweet and wholesome, and the flocks throve +steadily, and were never thinned by disease; whereas on another farm, +that lay along the dank bottom of a valley, the herbage was rank and +rich, and the sheep fed and got heavy, but braxy at the close of autumn +fell upon them like a pestilence, and more than neutralized to the +farmer every advantage of the superior fertility of the soil. It was not +uninteresting, even for one not a sheep-farmer, to learn that the life +of the sheep is worth fewer years' purchase in one little track of +country than in another adjacent one; and that those differences in the +salubrity of particular spots which obtain in other parts of the world +in regard to our own species, and which make it death to linger on the +luxuriant river-side, while on the arid plain or elevated hill-top there +is health and safety, should exist in contiguous walks in the Highlands +of Scotland in reference to some of the inferior animals. The minister +and I became wonderfully good friends for the time. All the seats in the +gig, both back and front, had been occupied ere he had taken his +passage, and the postman had assigned him a miserable place on the +narrow elevated platform in the middle, where he had to coil himself up +like a hedgehog in its hole, sadly to the discomfort of limbs still +stout and strong, but stiffened by the long service of full seventy +years. And, as in the case made famous by Cowper, of the "softer sex" +and the old-fashioned iron-cushioned arm-chairs, the old man had, as +became his years, "'gan murmur." I contrived, by sitting on the edge of +the gig on the one side, and by getting the postman to take a similar +seat on the other, to find room for him in front; and there, feeling he +had not to do with savages, he became kindly and conversible. We beat +together over a wide range of topics;--the Scotch banks, and Sir Robert +Peel's intentions regarding them,--the periodical press of +Scotland,--the Edinburgh literati,--the Free Church even: he had been a +consistent Moderate all his days, and disliked renegades, he said; and +I, of course, disliked renegades too. We both remembered that, though +civilized nations give quarter to an enemy overpowered in open fight, +they are still in the habit of shooting deserters. In short, we agreed +on a great many different matters; and, by comparing notes, we made the +best we could of a tedious journey and a very bad day. At the inn at +Garve, a long stage from Dingwall, we alighted, and took the road +together, to straighten our stiffened limbs, while the post man was +engaged in changing horses. The minister stopped short in the middle of +a discussion. We are not on equal terms, he said: you know who I am, and +I don't know you: we did not start fair at the beginning, but let us +start fair now. Ah, we have agreed hitherto, I replied; but I know not +how we are to agree when you know who I am: are you sure you will not be +frightened? Frightened! said the minister sturdily; no, by no man. Then, +I am the Editor of the _Witness_. There was a momentary pause. "Well," +said the minister, "it's all the same: I'm glad we should have met. Give +me, man, a shake of your hand." And so the conversation went on as +before till we parted at Dingwall,--the Establishment clergyman wet to +the skin, the Free Church editor in no better condition; but both, +mayhap, rather less out of conceit with the ride than if it had been +ridden alone. + +I had intended passing at least two days in the neighborhood of +Dingwall, where I proposed renewing an acquaintance, broken off for +three-and-twenty years, with those bituminous shales of Strathpeffer in +which the celebrated mineral waters of the valley take their rise,--the +Old Red Conglomerate of Brahan, the vitrified fort of Knockferrel, the +ancient tower of Fairburn, above all, the pleasure-grounds of +Conon-side. I had spent the greater portion of my eighteenth and +nineteenth years in this part of the country; and I was curious to +ascertain to what extent the man in middle life would verify the +observations of the lad,--to recall early incidents, revisit remembered +scenes, return on old feelings, and see who were dead and who were alive +among the casual acquaintances of nearly a quarter of a century ago. The +morning of Wednesday rose dark with fog and rain, but the wind had +fallen; and as I could not afford to miss seeing Conon-side, I sallied +out under cover of an umbrella. I crossed the bridge, and reached the +pleasure-grounds of Conon-house. The river was big in flood: it was +exactly such a river Conon as I had lost sight of in the winter of 1821; +and I had to give up all hope of wading into its fords, as I used to do +early in the autumn of that year, and pick up the pearl muscles that lie +so thickly among the stones at the bottom. I saw, however, amid a +thicket of bushes by the river-side, a heap of broken shells, where some +herd-boy had been carrying on such a pearl fishery as I had sometimes +used to carry on in my own behalf so long before; and I felt it was just +something to see it. The flood eddied past, dark and heavy, sweeping +over bulwark and bank. The low-stemmed alders that rose on islet and +mound seemed shorn of half their trunks in the tide; here and there an +elastic branch bent to the current, and rose and bent again; and now a +tuft of withered heath came floating down, and now a soiled wreath of +foam. How vividly the past rose up before me!--boyish day-dreams +forgotten for twenty years,--the fossils of an early formation of mind, +produced at a period when the atmosphere of feeling was warmer than now, +and the immaturities of the mental kingdom grew rank and large, like the +ancient Cryptogamiae, and bore no specific resemblance to the productions +of a present time. I had passed in the neighborhood the first season I +anywhere spent among strangers, at an age when home is not a country, +nor a province even, but simply a little spot of earth inhabited by +friends and relatives; and the rude verses, long forgotten, in which my +joy had found vent when on the eve of returning to that home,--a home +little more than twenty miles away,--came chiming as freshly into my +memory as if scarce a month had passed since I had composed them beside +the Conon.[6] + +Three-and-twenty years form a large portion of the short life of +man,--one-third, as nearly as can be expressed in unbroken numbers, of +the entire term fixed by the psalmist, and full one-half, if we strike +off the twilight periods of childhood and immature youth, and of +senectitude weary of its toils. I found curious indications among the +grounds of Conon-side, of the time that had elapsed since I had last +seen them. There was a rectangular pond in a corner of a moor, near the +public road, inhabited by about a dozen voracious, frog-eating pike, +that I used frequently to visit. The water in the pond was exceedingly +limpid; and I could watch from the banks every motion of the hungry, +energetic inmates. And now I struck off from the river-side by a narrow +tangled pathway, to visit it once more. I could have found out the +place blindfold: there was a piece of flat brown heath that stretched +round its edges, and a mossy slope that rose at its upper side, at the +foot of which the taste of the proprietor had placed a rustic chair. The +spot, though itself bare and moory, was nearly surrounded by wood, and +looked like a clearing in an American forest. There were lines of +graceful larches on two of its sides, and a grove of vigorous beeches +that directly fronted the setting sun on a third; and I had often found +it a place of delightful resort, in which to saunter alone in the calm +summer evenings, after the work of the day was over. Such was the scene +as it existed in my recollection. I came up to it this day through +dripping trees, along a neglected pathway; and found, for the open space +and the rectangular pond, a gloomy patch of water in the middle of a +tangled thicket, that rose some ten or twelve feet over my head. What +had been bare heath a quarter of a century before had become a thick +wood; and I remembered, that when I had been last there, the open space +had just been planted with forest-trees, and that some of the taller +plants rose half-way to my knee. Human lifetimes, as now measured, are +not intended to witness both the seed-times and the harvests of +forests,--both the planting of the sapling, and the felling of the huge +tree into which it has grown; and so the incident impressed me strongly. +It reminded me of the sage Shalum in Addison's antediluvian tale, who +became wealthy by the sale of his great trees, two centuries after he +had planted them. I pursued my walk, to revisit another little patch of +water which I had found so very entertaining a volume three-and-twenty +years previous, that I could still recall many of its lessons; but the +hand of improvement had been busy among the fields of Conon-side; and +when I came up to the spot which it had occupied, I found but a piece +of level arable land, bearing a rank swathe of grass and clover.[7] + +Not a single individual did I find on the farm who had been there twenty +years before. I entered into conversation with one of the ploughmen, +apparently a man of some intelligence; but he had come to the place only +a summer or two previous, and the names of most of his predecessors +sounded unfamiliar in his ears: he knew scarce anything of the old laird +or his times, and but little of the general history of the district. The +frequent change of servants incident to the large-farm system has done +scarce less to wear out the oral antiquities of the country than has +been done by its busy ploughs in obliterating antiquities of a more +material cast. The mythologic legend and traditionary story have shared +the same fate, through the influence of the one cause, which has been +experienced by the sepulchral tumulus and the ancient encampment under +the operations of the other. I saw in the pillars and archways of the +farm-steading some of the hewn stones bearing my own mark,--an anchor, +to which I used to attach a certain symbolical meaning; and I pointed +them out to the ploughman. I had hewn these stones, I said, in the days +of the old laird, the grandfather of the present proprietor. The +ploughman wondered how a man still in middle life could have such a +story to tell. I must surely have begun work early in the day, he +remarked, which was perhaps the best way for getting it soon over. I +remembered having seen similar markings on the hewn-work of ancient +castles, and of indulging in, I daresay, idle enough speculations +regarding what was doing at court and in the field, in Scotland and +elsewhere, when the old long-departed mechanics had been engaged in +their work. When this mark was affixed, I have said, all Scotland was +in mourning for the disaster at Flodden, and the folk in the work-shed +would have been, mayhap, engaged in discussing the supposed treachery of +Home, and in arguing whether the hapless James had fallen in battle, or +gone on a pilgrimage to merit absolution for the death of his father. +And when this other more modern mark was affixed, the Gowrie conspiracy +must have been the topic of the day, and the mechanics were probably +speculating,--at worst not more doubtfully than the historians have done +after them,--on the guilt or innocence of the Ruthvens. It now rose +curiously enough in memory, that I was employed in fashioning one of the +stones marked by the anchor,--a corner stone in a gate-pillar,--when one +of my brother apprentices entered the work-shed, laden with a bundle of +newly sharpened irons from the smithy, and said he had just been told by +the smith that the great Napoleon Bonaparte was dead. I returned to the +village of Conon Bridge, through the woods of Conon House. The day was +still very bad: the rain pattered thick on the leaves, and fell +incessantly in large drops on the pathways. There is a solitary, +picturesque burying-ground on a wooded hillock beside the river, with +thick dark woods all around it,--one of the two burying-grounds of the +parish of Urquhart,--which I would fain have visited, but the swollen +stream had risen high around, converting the hillock into an island, and +forbade access. I had spent many an hour among the tombs. They are few +and scattered, and of the true antique cast,--roughened with death's +heads, and cross-bones, and rudely sculptured armorial bearings; and on +a broken wall, that marked where the ancient chapel once had stood, +there might be seen, in the year 1821, a small, badly-cut sun-dial, with +its iron gnomon wasted to a saw-edged film, that contained more oxide +than metal. The only fossils described in my present chapter are fossils +of mind; and the reader will, I trust, bear with me should I produce +one fossil more of this somewhat equivocal class. It has no merit to +recommend it,--it is simply an organism of an immature intellectual +formation, in which, however, as in the Carboniferous period, there was +provision made for the necessities of an after time.[8] If a young man +born on the wrong side of the Tweed for _speaking_ English, is desirous +to acquire the ability of _writing_ it, he should by all means begin by +trying to write it in verse. + +I passed, on my return to Dingwall, through the village of Conon Bridge; +and remembering that one of the masons who had hewn beside me in the +work-shed so many years before lived in the village at the time, I went +direct to the house he had inhabited, to see whether he might not be +there still. It was a low-roofed domicile beside the river, but in the +days of my old acquaintance it had presented an appearance of great +comfort and neatness; and as there now hung an air of neglect about it, +I inferred that it had found some other tenant. I inquired, however, at +the door, and was informed that Mr. ---- now lived higher up the street. +I would find him, it was added, in the best house on the right-hand +side,--the house with a hewn front, and a shop in it. He kept the shop, +and was the owner of the house, and had another house besides, and was +one of the elders of the Free Church in Urquhart. Such was the standing +of my old acquaintance the journeyman mason of twenty-three years ago. +He had been, when I knew him, a steady, industrious, religious +man,--with but one exception the only contributor to missionary and +Bible societies among a numerous party of workmen; and he was now +occupying a respectable place in his village, and was one of the voters +of the county. Let Chartism assert what it pleases on the one hand, and +Toryism what it may on the other, the property-qualification of the +Reform Bill is essentially a good one for such a country as Scotland. In +our cities it no doubt extends the political franchise to a fluctuating +class, ill hafted in society, who possess it one year and want it +another; but in our villages and smaller towns it hits very nearly the +right medium for forming a premium on steady industry and character, and +for securing that at least the mass of those who possess it should be +sober-minded men, with a stake in the general welfare. In running over +the histories of the various voters in one of our smaller towns, I found +that nearly one-half of the whole had, like my old comrade at Conon +Bridge, acquired for themselves, through steady and industrious habits, +the qualification from which they derive their vote. My companion failed +to recognize in the man turned of forty the smooth-cheeked stripling of +eighteen, with whom he had wrought so long before. I soon succeeded, +however, in making good my claim to his acquaintance. He had previously +established the identity of the editor of his newspaper with his quondam +fellow-workman, and a single link more was all the chain wanted. We +talked over old matters for half an hour. His wife, a staid respectable +matron, who, when I had been last in the district, was exactly such a +person as her eldest daughter, showed me an Encyclopaedia, with colored +prints, which she wished to send, if she knew but how, to the Free +Church library. I walked with him through his garden, and saw trees +loaded with yellow-cheeked pippins, where I had once seen only +unproductive heath, that scantily covered a barren soil of ferruginous +sand, and unwillingly declining an invitation to wait tea,--for a +previous engagement interfered,--I took leave of the family, and +returned to Dingwall. The following morning was gloomy, and threatened +rain; and giving up my intention of exploring Strathpeffer, I took the +morning coach for Invergordon, and then walked to Cromarty, where I +arrived just in time for breakfast. + +I marked, from the top of the coach, about two miles to the north-east +of Dingwall, beds of a deep gray sandstone, identical in color and +appearance with some of the gray sandstones of the Middle Old Red of +Forfarshire, and learned that quarries had lately been opened in these +beds near Montgerald. The Old Red Sandstone lies in immense development +on the flanks of Ben-Wevis; and it is just possible that the analogue of +the gray flagstones of Forfar may be found among its upper beds. If so, +the quarriers should be instructed to look hard for organic +remains,--the broad-headed Cephalaspis, so characteristic of the +formation, and the huge Crustacean, its contemporary, that disported in +plates large as those of the steel mail of the later ages of chivalry. +The geologists of Dingwall,--if Dingwall has yet got its +geologists,--might do well to attempt determining the point. I found the +science much in advance in Cromarty, especially among the ladies,--its +great patronizers and illustrators everywhere,--and, in not a few +localities, extensive contributors to its hoards of fact. Just as I +arrived, there was a pic-nic party of young people setting out for the +Lias of Shandwick. They spent the day among its richly fossiliferous +shales and limestones, and brought back with them in the evening, +Ammonites and Gryphites enough to store a museum. Cromarty had been +visited during the summer by geologists speaking a foreign tongue, but +thoroughly conversant with the occult yet common language of the rocks, +and deeply interested in the stories which the rocks told. The vessels +in which the Crown Prince of Denmark voyaged to the Faroe Isles had +been for some time in the bay; and the Danes, his companions, votaries +of the stony science, zealously plied chisel and hammer among the Old +Red Sandstones of the coast. A townsman informed me that he had seen a +Danish Professor hammering like the tutelary Thor of his country among +the nodules in which I had found the first Pterichthys and first +Diplacanthus ever disinterred; and that the Professor, ever and anon as +he laid open a specimen, brought it to a huge smooth boulder, on which +there lay a copy of the "Old Red Sandstone," to ascertain from the +descriptions and prints its family and name. Shall I confess that the +circumstance gratified me exceedingly? There are many elements of +Discord among mankind in the present time, both at home and abroad,--so +many, that I am afraid we need entertain no hope of seeing an end, in at +least our day, to controversy and war. And we should be all the better +pleased, therefore, to witness the increase of those links of +union,--such as the harmonizing bonds of a scientific sympathy,--the +tendency of which is to draw men together in a kindly spirit, and the +formation of which involves no sacrifice of principle, moral or +religious. I do not think that the foreigner, after geologizing in my +company, would have had any very vehement desire, in the event of a war, +to cut me down, or to knock me on the head. I am afraid this chapter +would require a long apology, and for a long apology space is wanting. +But there will be no egotism, and much geology, in my next. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + Ichthyolite Beds--An interesting Discovery--Two Storeys of Organic + Remains in the Old Red Sandstone--Ancient Ocean of Lower Old + Red--Two great Catastrophes--Ancient Fish Scales--Their skilful + Mechanism displayed by examples--Bone Lips--Arts of the Slater and + Tiler as old as Old Red Sandstone--Jet Trinkets--Flint + Arrow-heads--Vitrified Forts of Scotland--Style of grouping Lower + Old Red Fossils--Illustration from Cromarty Fishing + Phenomena--Singular Remains of Holoptychius--Ramble with Mr. Robert + Dick--Color of the Planet Mars--Tombs never dreamed of by + Hervey--Skeleton of the Bruce--Gigantic Holoptychius--"Coal money + Currency"--Upper Boundary of Lower Old Red--Every one may add to + the Store of Geological Facts--Discoveries of Messrs. Dick and + Peach. + + +I spent one long day in exploring the ichthyolite beds on both sides the +Cromarty Frith, and another long day in renewing my acquaintance with +the Liasic deposit at Shandwick. In beating over the Lias, though I +picked up a few good specimens, I acquired no new facts; but in +re-examining the Old Red Sandstone and its organisms I was rather more +successful. I succeeded in eliciting some curious points not yet +recorded, which, with the details of an interesting discovery made in +the far north in this formation, I may be perhaps able to weave into a +chapter somewhat more geological than my last. + +Some of the readers of my little work on the Old Red Sandstone will +perhaps remember that I described the organisms of that ancient system +as occurring in the neighborhood of Cromarty mainly on one platform, +raised rather more than a hundred feet over the great Conglomerate; and +that on this platform, as if suddenly overtaken by some wide-spread +catastrophe, the ichthyolites lie by thousands and tens of thousands, +in every attitude of distortion and terror. We see the spiked wings of +the Pterichthys elevated to the full, as they had been erected in the +fatal moment of anger and alarm, and the bodies of the Cheirolepis and +Cheiracanthus bent head to tail, in the stiff posture into which they +had curled when the last pang was over. In various places in the +neighborhood the ichthyolites are found _in situ_ in their coffin-like +nodules, where it is impossible to trace the relation of the beds in +which they occur to the rocks above and below; and I had suspected for +years that in at least some of the localities, they could not have +belonged to the lower platform of death, but to some posterior +catastrophe that had strewed with carcasses some upper platform. I had +thought over the matter many a time and oft when I should have been +asleep,--for it is marvellous how questions of the kind grow upon a man; +and now, selecting as a hopeful scene of inquiry the splendid section +under the Northern Sutor, I set myself doggedly to determine whether the +Old Red Sandstone in this part of the country has not at least its two +storeys of organic remains, each of which had been equally a scene of +sudden mortality. I was entirely successful. The lower ichthyolite bed +occurs exactly one hundred and fourteen feet over the great +Conglomerate; and three hundred and eighteen feet higher up I found a +second ichthyolite bed, as rich in fossils as the first, with its thorny +Acanthodians twisted half round, as if still in the agony of +dissolution, and its Pterichthyes still extending their spear-like arms +in the attitude of defence. The discovery enabled me to assign to their +true places the various ichthyolite beds of the district. Those in the +immediate neighborhood of the town, and a bed which abuts on the Lias at +Eathie, belong to the upper platform; while those which appear in Eathie +Burn, and along the shores at Navity, belong to the lower. The chief +interest of the discovery, however, arises from the light which it +throws on the condition of the ancient ocean of the Lower Old Red, and +on the extreme precariousness of the tenure on which the existence of +its numerous denizens was held. In a section of little more than a +hundred yards there occur at least two platforms of violent +death,--platforms inscribed with unequivocal evidence of two great +catastrophes which over wide areas depopulated the seas. In the Old Red +Sandstone of Caithness there are many such platforms: storey rises over +storey; and the floor of each bears its closely-written record of +disaster and sudden extinction. Pompeii in this northern locality lies +over Herculaneum, and Anglano over both. We cease to wonder why the +higher order of animals should not have been introduced into a scene of +being that had so recently arisen out of chaos, and over which the reign +of death so frequently returned. In a somewhat different sense from that +indicated by the poet of the "Seasons," + + "As yet the trembling _year_ was unconfirmed, + And _winter_ oft at eve resumed the gale." + +Lying detached in the stratified clay of the fish-beds, there occur in +abundance single plates and scales of ichthyolites, which, as they can +be removed entire, and viewed on both sides, illustrate points in the +mechanism of the creatures to which they belonged that cannot be so +clearly traced in the same remains when locked up in stone. There is a +vast deal of skilful carpentry exhibited--if carpentry I may term it--in +the coverings of these ancient ichthyolites. In the commoner fish of our +existing seas the scales are so thin and flexible,--mere films of +horn,--that there is no particularly nice fitting required in their +arrangement. The condition, too, through which portions of unprotected +skin may be presented to the water, as over and between the rays of the +fins, and on the snout and lips, obviates many a mechanical difficulty +of the earlier period, when it was a condition, as the remains +demonstrate, that no bit of naked skin, should be exposed, and when the +scales and plates were formed, not of thin horny films, but of solid +pieces of bone. Thin slates lie on the roof of a modern dwelling, +without any nice fitting;--they are scales of the modern construction: +but it required much nice fitting to make thick flagstones lie on the +roof of an ancient cathedral;--_they_, on the other hand, were scales of +the ancient type. Again, it requires no ingenuity whatever, to suffer +the hands and face to go naked,--and such is the condition of our +existing fish, with their soft skinny snouts and membranous fins; but to +cover the hands with flexible steel gauntlets, and the face with such an +iron mask as that worn by the mysterious prisoner of Louis XIV., would +require a very large amount of ingenuity indeed; and the ancient +ichthyolites of the Old Red were all masked and gauntleted. Now the +detached plates and scales of the stratified clay exhibit not a few of +the mechanical contrivances through which the bony coverings of these +fish were made to unite--as in coats of old armor--great strength with +great flexibility. The scales of the Osteolepis and Diplopterus I found +nicely bevelled atop and at one of the sides; so that where they +overlapped each other,--for at the joints not a needle-point could be +insinuated,--the thickness of the two scales equalled but the thickness +of one scale in the centre, and thus an equable covering was formed. I +brought with me some of these detached scales, and they now lie fitted +together on the table before me, like pieces of complicated hewn work +carefully arranged on the ground ere the workman transfers them to their +place on the wall. In the smaller-scaled fish, such as the +Cheiracanthus and Cheirolepis, a different principle obtained. The +minute glittering rhombs of bone were set thick on the skin, like those +small scales of metal sewed on leather, that formed an inferior kind of +armor still in use in eastern nations, and which was partially used in +our own country just ere the buff coat altogether superseded the coat of +mail. I found a beautiful piece of jaw in the clay, with the enamelled +tusks bristling on its brightly enamelled edge, like iron teeth in an +iron rake. Mr. Parkinson expresses some wonder, in his work on fossils, +that in a fine ichthyolite in the British Museum, not only the teeth +should have been preserved, but also the lips; but we now know enough of +the construction of the more ancient fish, to cease wondering. The lips +were formed of as solid bone as the teeth themselves, and had as fair a +chance of being preserved entire; just as the metallic rim of a toothed +wheel has as fair a chance of being preserved as the metallic teeth that +project from it. I was interested in marking the various modes of +attachment to the body of the animal which the detached scales exhibit. +The slater fastens on his slates with nails driven into the wood: the +tiler secures his tiles by means of a raised bar on the under side of +each, that locks into a corresponding bar of deal in the framework of +the roof. Now in some of the scales I found the art of the tiler +anticipated; there were bars raised on their inner sides, to lay hold of +the skin beneath; while in others it was the art of the slater that had +been anticipated,--the scales had been slates fastened down by long +nails driven in slantwise, which were, however, mere prolongations of +the scale itself. Great truths may be repeated until they become +truisms, and we fail to note what they in reality convey. The great +truth that all knowledge dwelt without beginning in the adorable Creator +must, I am afraid, have been thus common-placed in my mind; for at +first it struck me as wonderful that the humble arts of the tiler and +slater should have existed in perfection in the times of the Old Red +Sandstone. + +I had often remarked amid the fossiliferous limestones of the Lower Old +Red, minute specks and slender veins of a glossy bituminous substance +somewhat resembling jet, sufficiently hard to admit of a tolerable +polish, and which emitted in the fire a bright flame, I had remarked, +further, its apparent identity with a substance used by the ancient +inhabitants of the northern part of the country in the manufacture of +their rude ornaments, as occasionally found in sepulchral urns, such as +beads of an elliptical form, and flat parallelograms, perforated +edge-wise by some four or five holes a-piece; but I had failed hitherto +in detecting in the stone, portions of sufficient bulk for the formation +of either the beads or the parallelograms. On this visit to the +ichthyolite beds, however, I picked up a nodule that inclosed a mass of +the jet large enough to admit of being fashioned into trinkets of as +great bulk as any of the ancient ones I have yet seen, and a portion of +which I succeeded in actually forming into a parallelogram, that could +not have been distinguished from those of our old sepulchral urns. It is +interesting enough to think, that these fossiliferous beds, altogether +unknown to the people of the country for many centuries, and which, when +I first discovered them, some twelve or fourteen years ago, were equally +unknown to geologists, should have been resorted to for this substance, +perhaps thousands of years ago, by the savage aborigines of the +district. But our antiquities of the remoter class furnish us with +several such facts. It is comparatively of late years that we have +become acquainted with the yellow chalk-flints of Banffshire and +Aberdeen; though before the introduction of iron into the country they +seem to have been well known all over the north of Scotland. I have +never yet seen a stone arrow-head found in any of the northern +localities, that had not been fashioned out of this hard and splintery +substance,--a sufficient proof that our ancestors, ere they had formed +their first acquaintance with the metals, were intimately acquainted +with at least the mechanical properties of the chalk-flint, and knew +where in Scotland it was to be found. They were mineralogists enough, +too, as their stone battle-axes testify, to know that the best +tool-making rock is the axe-stone of Werner; and in some localities they +must have brought their supply of this rather rare mineral from great +distances. A history of those arts of savage life, as shown in the +relics of our earlier antiquities, which the course of discovery sereved +thoroughly to supplant, but which could not have been carried on without +a knowledge of substances and qualities afterwards lost, until +re-discovered by scientific curiosity, would form of itself an +exceedingly curious chapter. The art of the gun-flint maker (and it, +too, promises soon to pass into extinction) is unquestionably a curious +one, but not a whit more curious or more ingenious than the art +possessed by the rude inhabitants of our country eighteen hundred years +ago, of chipping arrow-heads with an astonishing degree of neatness out +of the same stubborn material. They found, however, that though flint +made a serviceable arrow-head, it was by much too brittle for an adze or +battle-axe; and sought elsewhere than among the Banffshire gravels for +the rock out of which these were to be wrought. Where they found it in +our northern provinces I have not yet ascertained. It is but a short +time since I came to know that they were beforehand with me in the +discovery of the bituminous jet of the Lower Old Red Sandstone, and were +excavators among its fossiliferous beds. The vitrified forts of the +north of Scotland give evidence of yet another of the obsolete arts. +Before the savage inhabitants of the country were ingenious enough to +know the uses of mortar, or were furnished with tools sufficiently hard +and solid to dress a bit of sandstone, they must have been acquainted +with the _chemical_ fact, that with the assistance of fluxes, a pile of +stones could be fused into a solid wall, and with the _mineralogical_ +fact, that there are certain kinds of stones which yield much more +readily to the heat than others. The art of making vitrified forts was +the art of making ramparts of rock through a knowledge of the less +obstinate earths and the more powerful fluxes. I have been informed by +Mr. Patrick Duff of Elgin, that he found, in breaking open a vitrified +fragment detached from an ancient hill-fort, distinct impressions of the +serrated kelp-weed of our shores,--the identical flux which, in its +character as the kelp of commerce, was so extensively used in our +glass-houses only a few years ago. + +I was struck, during my explorations at this time, as I had been often +before, by the style of grouping, if I may so speak, which obtains among +the Lower Old Red fossils. In no deposit with which I am acquainted, +however rich in remains, have all its ichthyolites been found lying +together. The collector finds some one or two species very numerous; +some two or three considerably less so, but not unfrequent; some one or +two more, perhaps, exceedingly rare; and a few, though abundant in other +localities, that never occur at all. In the Cromarty beds, for instance, +I never found a Holoptychius, and a Dipterus only once; the Diplopterus +is rare; the Glyptolepis not common; the Cheirolepis and Pterichthys +more so, but not very abundant; the Cheiracanthus and Diplacanthus, on +the other hand, are numerous; and the Osteolepis and Coccosteus more +numerous still. But in other deposits of the same formation, though a +similar style of grouping obtains, the proportions are reversed with +regard to species and genera: the fish rare in one locality abound in +another. In Banniskirk, for instance, the Dipterus is exceedingly +common, while the Osteolepis and Coccosteus are rare, and the +Cheiracanthus and Cheirolepis seem altogether awanting. Again, in the +Morayshire deposits, the Glyptolepis is abundant, and noble specimens of +the Lower Old Red Holoptychius--of which more anon--are to be found in +the neighborhood of Thurso, associated with remains of the Diplopterus, +Coccosteus, Dipterus, and Osteolepis. The fact may be deemed of some +little interest by the geologist, and may serve to inculcate caution, by +showing that it is not always safe to determine regarding the place or +age of subordinate formations from the per centage of certain fossils +which they may be found to contain, or from the fact that they should +want some certain organisms of the system to which they belong, and +possess others. These differences may and do exist in contemporary +deposits; and I had a striking example, on this occasion, of their +dependence on a simple law of instinct, which is as active in producing +the same kind of phenomena now as it seems to have been in the earlier +days of the Old Red Sandstone. The Cromarty and Moray Friths, mottled +with fishing boats (for the bustle of the herring fishers had just +begun), stretched out before me. A few hundred yards from the shore +there was a yawl lying at anchor, with an old fisherman and a few boys +angling from the stern for sillocks (the young of the coal-fish) and for +small rock-cod. A few miles higher up, where the Cromarty Frith expands +into a wide landlocked basin, with shallow sandy shores, there was a +second yawl engaged in fishing for flounders and small skate,--for such +are the kinds of fish that frequent the flat shallows of the basin. A +turbot-net lay drying in the sun: it served to remind me that some six +or eight miles away, in an opposite direction, there is a deep-sea bank, +on which turbot, halibut, and large skate are found. Numerous boats were +stretching down the Moray Frith, bound for the banks of a more distant +locality, frequented at this early stage of the herring fishing by +shoals of herrings, with their attendant dog-fish and cod; and I knew +that in yet another deep-sea range there lie haddock and whiting banks. +Almost every variety of existing fish in the two friths has its own +peculiar habitat; and were they to be destroyed by some sudden +catastrophe, and preserved by some geologic process, on the banks and +shoals which they frequent, there would occur exactly the same phenomena +of grouping in the fossiliferous contemporaneous deposits which they +would thus constitute, as we find exhibited by the deposits of the Lower +Old Red Sandstone. + +The remains of Holoptychius occur, I have said, in the neighborhood of +Thurso. I must now add, that very singular remains they are,--full of +interest to the naturalist, and, in great part at least, new to Geology. +My readers, votaries of the stony science, must be acquainted with the +masterly paper of Mr. Sedgwick and Sir R. Murchison "On the Old Red +Sandstone of Caithness and the North of Scotland generally," which forms +part of the second volume (second series) of the "Transactions of the +Geological Society," and with the description which it furnishes, among +many others, of the rocks in the neighborhood of Thurso. +Calcareo-bituminous flags, grits, and shales, of which the paving +flagstones of Caithness may be regarded as the general type, occur on +the shores, in reefs, crags, and precipices; here stretching along the +coast in the form of flat, uneven bulwarks: there rising over it in +steep walls; yonder leaning to the surf, stratum against stratum, like +flights of stairs thrown down from their slant position to the level; in +some places severed by faults; in others cast about in every possible +direction, as if broken and contorted by a thousand antagonist +movements; but in their general bearing rising towards the east, until +the whole calcareo-bituminous schists of which this important member of +the system is composed disappear under the red sandstones of Dunnet +Head. Such, in effect, is the general description of Mr. Sedgwick and +Sir R. Murchison, of the rocks in the neighborhood of Thurso. It +indicates further, that in at least three localities in the range there +occur in the grits and shales, scales and impressions of fish. And such +was the ascertained geology of the deposit when taken up last year by an +ingenious tradesman of Thurso, Mr. Robert Dick, whose patient +explorations, concentrated mainly on the fossil remains of this deposit, +bid fair to add to our knowledge of the ichthyology of the Old Red +Sandstone. Let us accompany Mr. Dick in one of his exploratory rambles. +The various organisms which he disinterred I shall describe from +specimens before me, which I owe to his kindness,--the localities in +which he found them, from a minute and interesting description, for +which I am indebted to his pen. + +Leaving behind us the town at the bottom of its deep bay, we set out to +explore a bluff-headed parallelogramical promontory, bounded by Thurso +Bay on the one hand, and Murkle Bay on the other, and which presents to +the open sea, in the space that stretches between, an undulating line of +iron-bound coast, exposed to the roll of the northern ocean. We pass two +stations in which the hard Caithness flagstones so well known in +commerce are jointed by saws wrought by machinery. As is common in the +Old Red Sandstone, in which scarce any stratum solid enough to be of +value to the workmen, whether for building or paving, contains good +specimens, we find but little to detain us in the dark coherent beds +from which the flags are quarried. Here and there a few glittering +scales occur; here and there a few coprolitic patches; here and there +the faint impression of a fucoid; but no organism sufficiently entire to +be transferred to the bag. As we proceed outwards, however, and the +fitful breeze comes laden with the keen freshness of the open sea, we +find among the hard dark strata in the immediate neighborhood of Thurso +Castle, a paler-colored bed of fine-grained semi-calcareous stone, +charged with remains in a state of coherency and keeping better fitted +to repay the labor of the specimen-collector. The inclosing matrix is +comparatively soft: when employed in the neighboring fences as a +building stone, we see it resolved by the skyey influences into +well-nigh its original mud; whereas the organisms which it contains are +composed of a hard, scarce destructible substance,--bone steeped in +bitumen; and the enamel on their outer surfaces is still as glossy and +bright as the japan on a _papier-mache_ tray fresh from the hands of the +workman. Their deep black, too, contrasts strongly with the pale hue of +the stone. They consist chiefly of scales, spines, dermal plates, +snouts, skull-caps, and vegetable impressions. A little farther on, in a +thick bed interposed between two faults, the same kind of remains occur +in the same abundance, largely mingled with scales and teeth of +Holoptychius, tuberculated plates, and coprolitic blotches; and further +on still, in a rubbly flagstone, near where a little stream comes +trotting merrily from the uplands to the sea, there occur +skull-plates,--at least one of which has been disinterred entire,--large +and massy as the helmets of ancient warriors. We have now reached the +outer point of the promontory, where the seaward wave, as it comes +rolling unbroken from the Pole, crosses, in nearing the shore, the +eastward sweep of the great Gulf-stream, and then casts itself headlong +on the rocks. The view has been extending with almost every step we have +taken, and it has now expanded into a wide and noble prospect of ocean +and bay, island and main, bold surf-skirted headlands, and green +retiring hollows. Yonder, on the one hand, are the Orkneys, rising dim +and blue over the foam-mottled currents of the Pentland Frith; and +yonder, on the other, the far-stretching promontory of Holborn Head, +with the line of coast that sweeps along the opposite side of the bay; +here sinking in abrupt flagstone precipices direct into the tide; there +receding in grassy banks formed of a dark blue diluvium. The fields and +dwellings of living men mingle in the landscape with old episcopal ruins +and ancient burying-grounds; and yonder, well-nigh in the opening of the +Frith, gleams ruddy to the sun,--a true blood-colored blush, when all +around is azure or pale,--the tall Red Sandstone precipices of Dunnet +Head. It has been suggested that the planet Mars may owe its red color +to the extensive development of some such formation as the Old Red +Sandstone of our own planet: the existing formation in Mars may, at the +present time, it is said, be a Red Sandstone formation. It seems much +more probable, however, that the red flush which characterizes the whole +of that planet,--its oceans as certainly as its continents,--should be +rather owing to some widely-diffused peculiarity of the surrounding +atmosphere, than to aught peculiar in the varied surface of land and +water which that atmosphere surrounds; but certainly the extensive +existence of such a red system might produce the effect. If the rocks +and soils of Dunnet Head formed average specimens of those of our globe +generally, we could look across the heavens at Mars with a disk vastly +more rubicund and fiery than his own. The earth, as seen from the moon, +would seem such a planet bathed in blood as the moon at its rising +frequently appears from the earth. + +We have rounded the promontory. The beds exposed along the coast to the +lashings of the surf are of various texture and character,--here tough, +bituminous, and dark; there of a pale hue, and so hard that they ring to +the hammer like plates of cast iron; yonder soft, unctuous, and +green,--a kind of chloritic sandstone. And these very various powers of +resistance and degrees of hardness we find indicated by the rough +irregularities of the surface. The softer parts retire in long +trench-like hollows,--the harder stand out in sharp irregular ridges. +Fossils abound: the bituminous beds glitter bright with glossy +quadrangular scales, that look like sheets of black mica inclosed in +granite. We find jaws, teeth, tubercled plates, skull-caps, spines, and +fucoids,--"tombs among which to contemplate," says Mr. Dick, "of which +Hervey never dreamed." The condition of complete keeping in which we +discover some of these remains, even when exposed to the incessant dash +of the surf, seems truly wonderful. We see scales of Holoptychius +standing up in bold relief from the hard cherty rock that has worn from +around them, with all the tubercles and wavy ridges of their sculpture +entire. This state of keeping seems to be wholly owing to the curious +chemical change that has taken place in their substance. Ere the +skeleton of the Bruce, disinterred entire after the lapse of five +centuries, was recommitted to the tomb, there were such measures taken +to secure its preservation, that were it to be again disinterred even +after as many centuries more had passed, it might be found retaining +unbroken its gigantic proportions. There was molten pitch poured over +the bones in a state of sufficient fluidity to permeate all their +pores, and fill up the central hollows, and which, soon hardening around +them, formed a bituminous matrix, in which they may lie unchanged for +more than a thousand years. Now, exactly such was the process of keeping +to which nature resorted with these skeletons of the Old Red Sandstone. +The animal matter with which they were charged had been converted into a +hard black bitumen. Like the bones of the Bruce, they are bones steeped +in pitch; and so thoroughly is every pore and hollow still occupied, +that, when cast into the fire, they flamed like torches. In one of the +beds at which we have now arrived Mr. Dick found the occipital plates of +a Holoptychius of gigantic proportions. The frontal plates measured full +sixteen inches across, and from the nape of the neck to a little above +the place of the eyes, full eighteen; while a single plate belonging to +the lower part of the head measures thirteen and a half inches by seven +and a half. I have remarked, in my little work on the Old Red +Sandstone,--founding on a large amount of negative evidence, that a +mediocrity of size and bulk seems to have obtained among the fish of the +Lower Old Red, though in at least the Upper formation, a considerable +increase in both took place. A single piece of positive evidence, +however, outweighs whole volumes of a merely negative kind. From the +entire plate now in my possession, which is identical with one figured +in Mr. Noble of St. Madoes' specimen, and from the huge fragments of the +upper plates now before me, some of which are full five-eighth parts of +an inch in thickness, I am prepared to demonstrate that this +Holoptychius of the Lower Old Red must have been at least thrice the +size of the _Holoptychius Nobilissimus_ of Clashbennie. + +Still we pass on, though with no difficulty, over the rough contorted +crags, worn by the surf into deep ruts and uneven ridges, gnarled +protuberances, and crater-like hollows. The fossiliferous beds are +still very numerous, and largely charged with remains. We see dermal +bones, spines, scales, and jaws, projecting in high relief from the +sea-worn surface of the ledges below, and from the weatherworn faces of +the precipices above; for an uneven wall of crags some thirty or forty +feet high, now runs along the shore. We have reached what seems a large +mole, that sloping downwards athwart the beach from the precipices, like +a huge boat-pier, runs far into the surf. We find it composed of a +siliceous bed, so intensely compact and hard, that it has preserved its +proportions entire, while every other rock has worn from around it. For +century after century have the storms of the fierce north-west sent +their long ocean-nursed waves to dash against it in foam; for century +after century have the never-ceasing currents of the Pentland chafed +against its steep sides, or eddied over its rough crest; and yet still +does it remain unwasted and unworn,--its abrupt wall retaining all its +former steepness, and every angular jutting all the original sharpness +of edge. As we advance the scenery becomes wilder and more broken: here +an irregular wall of rock projects from the crags towards the sea; there +a dock-like hollow, in which the water gleams green, intrudes from the +sea upon the crags; we pass a deep lime-encrusted cave, with which +tradition associates some wild legends, and which, from the supposed +resemblance of the hanging stalactites to the entrails of a large animal +wounded in the chase, bears the name of Pudding-Gno; and then, turning +an angle of the coast, we enter a solitary bay, that presents at its +upper extremity a flat expanse of sand. Our walk is still over +sepulchres charged with the remains of the long-departed. Scales of +Holoptychius abound, scattered like coin over the surface of the ledges. +It would seem--to borrow from Mr. Dick--as if some old lord of the +treasury, who flourished in the days of the coal-money currency, had +taken a squandering fit at Sanday Bay, and tossed the dingy contents of +his treasure-chest by shovelfuls upon the rocks. Mr. Dick found in this +locality some of his finest specimens, one of which--the inner side of +the skull-cap of a Holoptychius, with every plate occupying its proper +place, and the large angular holes through which the eyes looked out +still entire--I trust to be able by and by to present to the public in a +good engraving. There occur jaws, plates, scales spines,--the remains of +fucoids, too, of great size and in vast abundance. Mr. Dick has +disinterred from among the rocks of Sanday Bay flattened carbonaceous +stems four inches in diameter. We are still within an hour's walk of +Thurso; but in that brief hour how many marvels have we witnessed!--how +vast an amount of the vital mechanisms of a perished creation have we +not passed over! Our walk has been along ranges of sepulchres, greatly +more wonderful than those of Thebes or Petraea, and mayhap a thousand +times more ancient. There is no lack of life along the shores of the +solitary little bay. The shriek of the sparrow-hawk mingles from the +cliffs with the hoarse deep croak of the raven; the cormorant on some +wave-encircled ledge, hangs out his dark wing to the breeze; the spotted +diver, plying his vocation on the shallows beyond, dives and then +appears, and dives and appears again, and we see the silver glitter of +scales from his beak; and far away in the offing the sunlight falls on a +scull of seagulls, that flutter upwards, downwards, and athwart, now in +the air, thick as midges over some forest-brook in an evening of +midsummer. + +But we again pass onwards, amid a wild ruinous scene of abrupt faults, +detached fragments of rocks, and reversed strata: again the ledges +assume their ordinary position and aspect, and we rise from lower to +higher and still higher beds in the formation,--for such, as I have +already remarked, is the general arrangement from west to east, along +the northern coast of Caithness, of the Old Red Sandstone. The great +Conglomerate base of the formation we find largely developed at Port +Skerry, just where the western boundary line of the county divides it +from the county of Sutherland; its thick upper coping of sandstone we +see forming the tall cliffs of Dunnet Head; and the greater part of the +space between, nearly twenty miles as the crow flies, is occupied +chiefly by the shales, grits, and flagstones, which we have found +charged so abundantly with the strangely-organized ichthyolites of the +second stage of vertebrate existence. In the twenty intervening miles +there are many breaks and faults, and so there may be, of course, +recurrences of the same strata, and re-appearances of the same beds; +but, after making large allowance for partial foldings and repetitions, +we must regard the development of this formation, with which the twenty +miles are occupied, as truly enormous. And yet it is but one of three +that occur in a single system. We reach the long flat bay of Dunnet, and +cross its waste of sands. The incoherent coils of the sand-worm lie +thick on the surface; and here a swarm of buzzing flies, disturbed by +the foot, rises in a cloud from some tuft of tangled sea-weed; and here +myriads of gray crustaceous sand-hoppers dart sidelong in the little +pools, or vault from the drier ridges a few inches into the air. Were +the trilobites of the Silurian system,--at one period, as their remains +testify, more than equally abundant,--creatures of similar habits? We +have at length arrived at the tall sandstone precipices of Dunnet, with +their broad decaying fronts of red and yellow; but in vain may we ply +hammer and chisel among them: not a scale, not a plate, not even the +stain of an imperfect fucoid appears. We have reached the upper boundary +of the Lower Old Red formation, and find it bordered by a desert devoid +of all trace of life. Some of the characteristic types of the formation +re-appear in the upper deposits; but though there is a reproduction of +the original works in their more characteristic passages, if I may so +speak, many of the readings are diverse, and the editions are all new. + +It is one of the circumstances of peculiar interest with which Geology +at its present stage is invested, that there is no man of energy and +observation who may not rationally indulge in the hope of extending its +limits by adding to its facts. Mr. Dick, an intelligent tradesman of +Thurso, agreeably occupies his hours of leisure, for a few months, in +detaching from the rocks in his neighborhood their organic remains; and +thus succeeds in adding to the existing knowledge of palaeozoic life, by +disinterring ichthyolites which even Agassiz himself would delight to +figure and describe. Several of the specimens in my possession, which I +owe to the kindness of Mr. Dick, are so decidedly unique, that they +would be regarded as strangers in the completest geological museums +extant. It is a not uncurious fact, that when the Thurso tradesman was +pursuing his labors of exploration among rocks beside the Pentland +Frith, a man of similar character was pursuing exactly similar labors, +with nearly similar results, among rocks of nearly the same era, that +bound, on the coast of Cornwall, the British Channel. When the one was +hammering in "Ready-money Cove," the other, at the opposite end of the +island, was disturbing the echoes of "Pudding-Gno;" and scales, plates, +spines, and occipital fragments of palaeozoic fishes rewarded the labors +of both. In an article on the scientific meeting at York, which appeared +in "Chambers' Journal" in the November of last year, the reading public +were introduced to a singularly meritorious naturalist, Mr. Charles +Peach,[9] a private in the mounted guard (preventive service), +stationed on the southern coast of Cornwall, who has made several +interesting discoveries on the outer confines of the animal kingdom, +that have added considerably to the list of our British zoophites and +echinodermata. The article, a finely-toned one, redolent of that +pleasing sympathy which Mr. Robert Chambers has ever evinced with +struggling merit, referred chiefly to Mr. Peach's labors as a +naturalist; but he is also well known in the geological field. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + Ichthyolite Beds of Clune and Lethenbarn--Limestone + Quarry--Destruction of Urns and Sarcophagi in the + Lime-kiln--Nodules opened--Beautiful coloring of the + Remains--Patrick Duff's Description--New Genus of Morayshire + Ichthyolite described--Form and size of the Nodules or Stone + Coffins--Illustration from Mrs. Marshall's Cements--Forest of + Darnaway--The Hill of Berries--Sluie--Elgin--Outliers of the Weald + and the Oolite--Description of the Weald at Linksfield--Mr. Duff's + _Lepidotus minor_--Eccentric Types of Fish Scales--Visit to the + Sandstones of Scat-Craig--Fine suit of Fossils at Scat-Craig--True + graveyard Bones, not mere Impressions--Varieties of pattern--The + Diker's "Carved Flowers"--_Stagonolepis_, a new genus--Termination + of the Ramble. + + +My term of furlough was fast drawing to a close. It was now Wednesday +the 14th August, and on Monday the 19th it behooved me to be seated at +my desk in Edinburgh. I took boat, and crossed the Moray Frith from +Cromarty to Nairn, and then walked on, in a very hot sun, over +Shakspeare's Moor to Boghole, with the intention of examining the +ichthyolite beds of Clune and Lethenbarn, and afterwards striking across +the country to Forres, through the forest of Darnaway, where the forest +abuts on the Findhorn, at the picturesque village of Sluie. When I had +last crossed the moor, exactly ten years before, it was in a tremendous +storm of rain and wind; and the dark platform of heath and bog, with its +old ruinous castle standing sentry over it, seemed greatly more worthy +of the genius of the dramatist, as cloud after cloud dashed over it, +like ocean waves breaking on some low volcanic island, than it did on +this clear, breathless afternoon, in the unclouded sunshine. But the +sublimity of the moor on which Macbeth met the witches depends in no +degree on that of the "heath near Forres," whether seen in foul weather +or fair; its topography bears relation to but the mind of Shakspeare; +and neither tile-draining nor the plough will ever lessen an inch of its +area. + +The limestone quarry of Clune has been opened on the edge of an +extensive moor, about three miles from the public road, where the +province of Moray sweeps upwards from the broad fertile belt of +corn-land that borders on the sea, to the brown and shaggy interior. +There is an old-fashioned bare-looking farm-house on the one side, +surrounded by a few uninclosed patches of corn; and the moorland, here +dark with heath, there gray with lichens, stretches away on the other. +The quarry itself is merely a piece of moor that has been trenched to +the depth of some five or six feet from the surface, and that presents, +at the line where the broken ground leans against the ground still +unbroken, a low uneven frontage, somewhat resembling that of a ruinous +stone-fence. It has been opened in the outcrop of an ichthyolite bed of +the Lower Old Red Sandstone, on which in this locality the thin moory +soil immediately rests, without the intervention of the common boulder +clay of the country; and the fish-enveloping nodules, which are composed +in this bed of a rich limestone, have been burnt, for a considerable +number of years, for the purposes of the agriculturist and builder. +There was a kiln smoking this evening beside the quarry; and a +few laborers were engaged with shovel and pickaxe in cutting into +the stratified clay of the unbroken ground, and throwing up its +spindle-shaped nodules on the bank, as materials for their next +burning. Antiquaries have often regretted that the sculptured marble +of Greece and Egypt,--classic urns, to whose keeping the ashes of +the dead had been consigned, and antique sarcophagi, roughened with +hieroglyphics,--should have been so often condemned to the lime-kiln by +the illiterate Copt or tasteless Mohammedan; and I could not help +experiencing a somewhat similar feeling here. The urns and sarcophagi, +many times more ancient than those of Greece and Egypt, and that told +still more wondrous stories, lay thickly ranged in this strange +catacomb,--so thickly, that there were quite enough for the lime-kiln +and the geologists too; but I found the kiln got all, and this at a time +when the collector finds scarce any fossils more difficult to procure +than those of the Lower Old Red Sandstone. I asked one of the laborers +whether he did not preserve some of the better specimens, in the hope of +finding an occasional purchaser. Not now, he said: he used to preserve +them in the days of Lady Cumming of Altyre; but since her ladyship's +death, no one in the neighborhood seemed to care for them, and strangers +rarely came the way. + +The first nodule I laid open contained a tolerably well-preserved +Cheiracanthus; the second, an indifferent specimen of Glyptolepis; and +three others, in succession, remains of Coccosteus. Almost every nodule +of one especial layer near the top incloses its organism. The coloring +is frequently of great beauty. In the Cromarty, as in the Caithness, +Orkney, and Gamrie specimens, the animal matter with which the bones +were originally charged has been converted into a dark glossy bitumen, +and the plates and scales glitter from a ground of opaque gray, like +pieces of japan-work suspended against a rough-cast wall. But here, as +in the other Morayshire deposits, the plates and scales exist in nearly +their original condition, as bone that retains its white color in the +centre of the specimens, where its bulk is greatest, and is often +beautifully tinged at its thinner edges by the iron with which the stone +is impregnated. It is not rare to find some of the better preserved +fossils colored in a style that reminds one of the more gaudy fishes of +the tropics. We see the body of the ichthyolite, with its finely +arranged scales, of a pure snow-white. Along the edges, where the +original substance of the bone, combining with the oxide of the matrix, +has formed a phosphate of iron, there runs a delicately shaded band of +plum-blue; while the out-spread fins, charged still more largely with +the oxide, are of a deep red. The description of Mr. Patrick Duff, in +his "Geology of Moray," so redolent of the quiet enthusiasm of the true +fossil-hunter, especially applies to the ichthyolites of this quarry, +and to those of a neighboring opening in the same bed,--the quarry of +Lethenbarn. "The nodules," says Mr. Duff, "which in their external shape +resemble the stones used in the game of curling, but are elliptical +bodies instead of round, lie in the shale on their flat sides, in a line +with the dip. When taken out, they remind one of water-worn pebbles, or +rather boulders of a shore. A smart blow on the edge splits them along +on the major axis, and exposes the interesting inclosure. The practised +geologist knows well the thrilling interest attending the breaking up of +the nodule: the uninitiated cannot sympathize with it. There is no time +when a fossil looks so well as when first exposed. There is a clammy +moisture on the surface of the scales or plates, which brings out the +beautiful coloring, and adds brilliancy to the enamel. Exposure to the +weather soon dims the lustre; and even in a cabinet an old specimen is +easily known by its tarnished aspect." + +I found at Clune no ichthyolite to which the geologists have not been +already introduced, or with which I had not been acquainted previously +in the Cromarty beds. The Lower Old Red of Morayshire furnishes, +however, at least one genus not yet figured nor described, and of which, +so far as I am aware, only a single specimen has yet been found. It +seems to have been a small delicately-formed fish; its head covered with +plates; its body with round scales of a size intermediate between those +of the Osteolepis and Cheiracanthus; its anterior dorsal fin placed, as +in the Dipterus, Diplopterus, and Glyptolepis, directly opposite to its +ventral fins; the enamelled surfaces of the minute scales were fretted +with microscopic undulating ridges, that radiated from the centre to the +circumference; similar furrows traversed the occipital plates; and the +fins, unfurnished with spines, were formed, as in the Dipterus and +Diplopterus, of thick-set, enamelled rays. The posterior fins and tail +of the creature were not preserved. I may mention, for the satisfaction +of the geologist, that I saw this unique fossil in the possession of the +late Lady Cumming of Altyre, a few weeks previous to the lamented death +of her ladyship; and that, on assuring her it was as new in relation to +the Cromarty and Caithness fish-beds as to those of Moray, she intimated +an intention of forthwith sending a drawing of it to Agassiz; but her +untimely decease in all probability interfered with the design, and I +have not since heard of this new genus of ichthyolite, or of her +ladyship's interesting specimen, hitherto apparently its only +representative and memorial. In the Morayshire, as in the Cromarty beds, +the limestone nodules take very generally the form of the fish which +they inclose: they are stone coffins, carefully moulded to express the +outline of the corpses within. Is the fish entire?--the nodule is of a +spindle form, broader at the head and narrower at the tail. Is it +slightly curved, in the attitude of violent death?--the nodule has also +its slight curve. Is it bent round, so that the extremities of the +creature meet?--the nodule, in conformity with the outline, is circular. +Is it disjointed and broken?--the nodule is correspondingly irregular. +In nine cases out of ten, the inclosing coffin, like that of an old +mummy, conforms to the outline of the organism which it incloses. It is +further worthy of remark, too, that a large fish forms generally a +large nodule, and a small fish a small one. Here, for instance, is a +nodule fifteen inches in length, here a nodule of only three inches, and +here a nodule of intermediate size, that measures eight inches. We find +that the large nodule contains a Cheirolepis thirteen inches in length, +the small one a Diplacanthus of but two and a half inches in length, and +the intermediate one a Cheiracanthus of seven inches. The size of the +fish evidently regulated that of the nodule. The coffin is generally as +good a fit in size as in form; and the bulk of the nodule bears almost +always a definite proportion to the amount of animal matter round which +it had formed. I was a good deal struck, a few weeks ago, in glancing +over a series of experiments conducted for a different purpose by a lady +of singular ingenuity,--Mrs. Marshall, the inventor and patentee of the +beautiful marble-looking plaster, _Intonacco_,--to find what seemed a +similar principle illustrated in the compositions of her various +cements. These are all formed of a basis of lime, mixed in certain +proportions with organic matter. The reader must be familiar with +cements of this kind long known among the people, and much used in the +repairing of broken pottery, such as a cement compounded of quicklime +made of oyster shells, mixed up with a glue made of skim-milk cheese, +and another cement made also of quicklime mixed up with the whites of +eggs. In Mrs. Marshall's cements, the organic matter is variously +compounded of both animal and vegetable substances, while the earth +generally employed is sulphate of lime; and the result is a +close-grained marble-like composition, considerably harder than the +sulphate in its original crystalline state. She had deposited, in one +set of her experiments, the calcareous earth, mixed up with sand, clay, +and other extraneous matters, on some of the commoner molluscs of our +shores; and universally found that the mass, incoherent everywhere +else, had acquired solidity wherever it had been permeated by the +animal matter of the molluscs. Each animal, in proportion to its size, +is found to retain, as in the fossiliferous spindles of the Old Red +Sandstone, its coherent nodule around it. One point in the natural +phenomenon, however, still remains unillustrated by the experiments of +Mrs. Marshall. We see in them the animal matter giving solidity to the +lime in immediate contact with it; but we do not see it possessing any +such affinity for it as to form, in an argillaceous compound, like that +of the ichthyolite beds, a centre of attraction powerful enough to draw +together the lime diffused throughout the mass. It still remains for the +geologic chemist to discover on what principle masses of animal matter +should form the attracting nuclei of limestone nodules. + +The declining sun warned me that I had lingered rather longer than was +prudent among the ichthyolites of Clune; and so, striking in an eastern +direction across a flat moor, through which I found the schistose gneiss +of the district protruding in masses resembling half-buried boulders, I +entered the forest of Darnaway. There was no path, and much underwood, +and I enjoyed the luxury of steering my course, out of sight of road and +landmark, by the sun, and of being not sure at times whether I had skill +enough to play the part of the bush-ranger under his guidance. A sultry +day had clarified and cooled down into a clear, balmy evening; the slant +beam was falling red on a thousand tall trunks,--here gleaming along +some bosky vista, to which the white silky wood-moths, fluttering by +scores, and the midge and the mosquito dancing by myriads, imparted a +motty gold-dust atmosphere; there penetrating in straggling rays far +into some gloomy recess, and resting in patches of flame, amid the +darkness, on gnarled stem, or moss-cushioned stump, or gray beard-like +lichen. I dislodged, in passing through the underwood, many a tiny +tenant of the forest, that had a better right to harbor among its wild +raspberries and junipers than I had to disturb them,--velvety +night-moths, that had sat with folded wings under the leaves, awaiting +the twilight, and that now took short blind flights of some two or three +yards, to get out of my way,--and robust, well-conditioned spiders, +whose elastic, well-tightened lines snapped sharp before me as I pressed +through, and then curled up on the scarce perceptible breeze, like +broken strands of wool. But every man, however Whiggish in his +inclinations, entertains a secret respect for the powerful; and though I +passed within a few feet of a large wasps' nest, suspended to a jutting +bough of furze, the wasps I took especial care _not_ to disturb. I +pressed on, first through a broad belt of the forest, occupied mainly by +melancholy Scotch firs; next through an opening, in which I found an +American-looking village of mingled cottages, gardens, fields and wood; +and then through another broad forest-belt, in which the ground is more +varied with height and hollow than in the first, and in which I found +only forest trees, mostly oaks and beeches. I heard the roar of the +Findhorn before me, and premised I was soon to reach the river; but +whether I should pursue it upwards or downwards, in order to find the +ferry at Sluie, was more than I knew. There lay in my track a beautiful +hillock, that reclines on the one side to the setting sun, and sinks +sheer on the other, in a mural sandstone precipice, into the Findhorn. +The trees open over it, giving full access to the free air and the +sunshine; and I found it as thickly studded over with berries as if it +had been the special care of half a dozen gardeners. The red light fell +yet redder on the thickly inlaid cranberries and stone-brambles of the +slope, and here and there, though so late in the season, on a patch of +wild strawberries; while over all, dark, delicate blueberries, with +their flour-bedusted coats, were studded as profusely as if they had +been peppered over it by a hailstone cloud. I have seldom seen such a +school-boy's paradise, and I was just thinking what a rare discovery I +would have deemed it had I made it thirty years sooner, when I heard a +whooping in the wood, and four little girls, the eldest scarcely eleven, +came bounding up to the hillock, their lips and fingers already dyed +purple, and dropped themselves down among the berries with a shout. They +were sadly startled to find they had got a companion in so solitary a +recess; but I succeeded in convincing them that they were in no manner +of danger from him; and on asking whether there was any of them skilful +enough to show me the way to Sluie, they told me they all lived there, +and were on their way home from school, which they attended at the +village in the forest. Hours had elapsed since the master had _let them +go_, but in so fine an evening the berries wouldn't, and so they were +still in the wood. I accompanied them to Sluie, and was ferried over the +river in a salmon coble. There is no point where the Findhorn, +celebrated among our Scotch streams for the beauty of its scenery, is so +generally interesting as in the neighborhood of this village; forest and +river,--each a paragon in its kind,--uniting for several miles together +what is most choice and characteristic in the peculiar features of both. +In no locality is the surface of the great forest of Darnaway more +undulated, or its trees nobler; and nowhere does the river present a +livelier succession of eddying pools and rippling shallows, or fret +itself in sweeping on its zig-zag course, now to the one bank, now to +the other, against a more picturesque and imposing series of cliffs. But +to the geologist the locality possesses an interest peculiar to itself. +The precipices on both sides are charged with fossils of the Upper Old +Red Sandstone: they form part of a vast indurated graveyard, excavated +to the depth of an hundred feet by the ceaseless wear of the stream; and +when the waters are low, the teeth-plates and scales of ichthyolites, +all of them specifically different from those of Clune and Lethenbarn, +and most of them generically so, may be disinterred from the strata in +handfuls. But the closing evening left me neither light nor time for the +work of exploration. I heard the curfew in the woods from the yet +distant town, and dark night had set in long ere I reached Forres. On +the following morning I took a seat in one of the south coaches, and got +on to Elgin an hour before noon. + +Elgin, one of the finest of our northern towns, occupies the centre of a +richly fossiliferous district, which wants only better sections to rank +it among the most interesting in the kingdom. An undulating platform of +Old Red Sandstone, in which we see, largely developed in one locality, +the lower formation of the Coccosteus, and in another, still more +largely, the upper formation of the _Holoptychius Nobilissimus_, forms, +if I may so speak, the foundation deposit of the district,--the true +geologic plane of the country; and, thickly scattered over this plane, +we find numerous detached knolls and patches of the Weald and the +Oolite, deposited like heaps of travelled soil, or of lime shot down by +the agriculturist on the surface of a field. The Old Red platform is +mottled by the outliers of a comparatively modern time: the sepulchral +mounds of later races, that lived and died during the reptile age of the +world, repose on the surface of an ancient burying-ground, charged with +remains of the long anterior age of the fish; and over all, as a general +covering, rest the red boulder-clay and the vegetable mould. Mr. Duff, +in his valuable "Sketch of the Geology of Moray," enumerates five +several localities in the neighborhood of Elgin in which there occur +outliers of the Weald; though, of course, in a country so flat, and in +which the diluvium lies deep, we cannot hold that all have been +discovered. And though the outliers of the Oolite have not yet been +ascertained to be equally numerous, they seem of greater extent; the +isolated masses detached from them by the denuding agencies lie thick +over extensive areas; and in working out the course of improvement which +has already rendered Elginshire the garden of the north, the ditcher at +one time touches on some bed of shale charged with the characteristic +Ammonites and Belemnites of the system, and at another on some +calcareous sandstone bed, abounding with its Pectens, its Plagiostoma, +and its Pinnae. Some of these outliers, whether Wealden or Oolitic, are +externally of great beauty. They occur in the parish of Lhanbryde, about +three miles to the east of Elgin, in the form of green pyramidal +hillocks, mottled with trees, and at Linksfield, as a confluent group of +swelling grassy mounds. And from their insulated character, and the +abundance of organisms which they inclose, they serve to remind one of +those green pyramids of Central America in which the traveller finds +deposited the skeleton remains of extinct races. It has been suggested +by Mr. Duff, in his "Sketch,"--a suggestion which the late +Sutherlandshire discoveries of Mr. Robertson of Inverugie have tended to +confirm,--that the Oolite and Weald of Moray do not, in all probability, +represent consecutive formations: they seem to bear the same sort of +relation to each other as that mutually borne by the Mountain Limestone +and the Coal Measures. The one, of lacustrine or of estuary origin, +exhibits chiefly the productions of the land and its fresh waters; the +other, as decidedly of marine origin, is charged with the remains of +animals whose proper home was the sea. But the productions, though +dissimilar, were in all probability contemporary, just as the crabs and +periwinkles of the Frith of Forth are contemporary with the frogs and +lymnea of Flanders moss. + +I had little time for exploration in the neighborhood of Elgin; but that +little, through the kindness of my friend Mr. Duff, I was enabled to +economize. We first visited together the outlier of the Weald at +Linksfield. It may be found rising in the landscape, a short mile below +the town, in the form of a green undulating hillock, half cut through by +a limestone quarry; and the section thus furnished is of great beauty. +The basis on which the hillock rests is formed of the well-marked +calcareous band in the Upper Old Red, known as the Cornstone, which we +find occurring here, as elsewhere, as a pale concretionary limestone of +considerable richness, though in some patches largely mixed with a green +argillaceous earth, and in others passing into a siliceous chert. Over +the pale-colored base, the section of the hillock is ribbed like an +onyx: for about forty feet, bands of gray, green, and blue clays +alternate with bands of cream-colored, light-green, and dark-blue +limestones; and over all there rests a band of the red boulder-clay, +capped by a thin layer of vegetable mould. It is a curious circumstance, +well fitted to impress on the geologist the necessity of cautious +induction, that the boulder-clay not only _overlies_, but also +_underlies_, this fresh-water deposit; a bed of unequivocally the same +origin and character with that at the top lying intercalated, as if +filling up two low flat vaults, between the upper surface of the +Cornstone and the lower band of the Weald. It would, however, be as +unsafe to infer that this intervening bed is older than the overlying +ones, as to infer that the rubbish which chokes up the vaulted dungeon +of an old castle is more ancient than the arch that stretches over it. +However introduced into the cavity which it occupies,--whether by +land-springs or otherwise,--we find it containing fragments of the green +and pale limestones that lie above, just as the rubbish of the castle +dungeon might be found to contain fragments of the castle itself. When +the bed of red boulder-clay was intercalated, the rocks of the overlying +Wealden were exactly the same sort of indurated substances that they are +now, and were yielding to the operations of some denuding agent. The +alternating clays and limestones of this outlier, each of which must +have been in turn an upper layer at the bottom of some lake or estuary, +are abundantly fossiliferous. In some the fresh-water character of the +deposit is well marked: Cyprides are so exceedingly numerous in some of +the bands, that they impart to the stone an Oolitic appearance; while +others of a dark-colored limestone we see strewed over, like the oozy +bottom of a modern lake, with specimens of what seem Paludina, Cyclas, +and Planorbus. Some of the other shells are more equivocal: a Mytilus or +Modiola, which abounds in some of the bands, may have been either a sea +or a fresh-water shell; and a small oyster and Astarte seem decidedly +marine. Remains of fish are very abundant,--scales, plates, teeth, +ichthyodorulites, and in some instances entire ichthyolites. I saw, in +the collection of Mr. Duff, a small but very entire specimen of +_Lepidotus minor_, with the fins spread out on the limestone, as in an +anatomical preparation, and almost every plate and scale in its place. +Some of his specimens of ichthyodorulites, too, are exceedingly +beautiful, and of great size, resembling jaws thickly set with teeth, +the apparent teeth being mere knobs ranged along the concave edge of the +bone, the surface of which we see gracefully fluted and enamelled. What +most struck me, however, in glancing over the drawers of Mr. Duff, was +the character of the Ganoid scales of this deposit. The Ganoid order in +the days of the Weald was growing old; and two new orders,--the Ctenoid +and Cycloid,--were on the eve of taking its place in creation. Hitherto +it had comprised at least two-thirds of all the fish that had existed +ever since the period in which fish first began; and almost every Ganoid +fish had its own peculiar pattern of scale. But it would now seem as if +well nigh all the simpler patterns were exhausted, and as if, in order +to give the variety which nature loves, forms of the most eccentric +types had to be resorted to. With scarce any exception save that +furnished by the scales of the _Lepidotus minor_, which are plain +lozenge-shaped plates, thickly japanned, the forms are strangely complex +and irregular, easily expressible by the pencil, but beyond the reach of +the pen. The remains of reptiles have been found occasionally, though +rarely, in this outlier of the Weald,--the vertebra of a Plesiosaurus, +the femur of some Chelonian reptile, and a large fluted tooth, supposed +Saurian. + +I would fain have visited some of the neighboring outliers of the +Oolite, but time did not permit. Mr. Duff's collection, however, enabled +me to form a tolerably adequate estimate of their organic contents. +Viewed in the group, these present nearly the same aspect as the +organisms of the Upper Lias of Pabba. There is in the same abundance +large Pinnae, and well-relieved Pectens, both ribbed and smooth; the same +abundance, too, of Belemnites and Ammonites of resembling type. Both the +Moray outliers and the Pabba deposit have their Terebratulae, Gervilliae, +Plagiostoma, Cardiadae, their bright Ganoid scales, and their +imperfectly-preserved lignites. They belong apparently to nearly the +same period, and must have been formed in nearly similar +circumstances,--the one on the western, the other on the eastern coast +of a country then covered by the vegetation of the Oolite, and now +known, with reference to an antiquity of but yesterday, as the ancient +kingdom of Scotland. I saw among the Ammonites of these outliers at +least one species, which, I believe, has not yet been found elsewhere, +and which has been named, after Mr. Robertson of Inverugie, the +gentleman who first discovered it, _Ammonites Robertsoni_. Like most of +the genus to which it belongs, it is an exceedingly beautiful shell, +with all its whorls free and gracefully ribbed, and bearing on its back, +as its distinguishing specific peculiarity, a triple keel. I spent the +evening of this day in visiting, with Mr. Duff, the Upper Old Red +Sandstones of Scat-Craig. In Elginshire, as in Fife and elsewhere, the +Upper Old Red consists of three grand divisions,--a superior bed of pale +yellow sandstone, which furnishes the finest building-stone anywhere +found in the north of Scotland,--an intermediate calcareous bed, known +technically as the Cornstone,--and an inferior bed of sandstone, +chiefly, in this locality, of a grayish-red color, and generally very +incoherent in its structure. The three beds, as shown by the fossil +contents of the yellow sandstones above, and of the grayish-red +sandstones below, are members of the same formation,--a formation which, +in Scotland at least, does not possess an organism in common with the +Middle Old Red formation; that of the Cephalaspis, as developed in +Forfarshire, Stirling, and Ayr, or the Lower Old Red formation; that of +the Coccosteus, as developed in Caithness, Cromarty, Inverness, and +Banff shires, and in so many different localities in Moray. The +Sandstones at Scat-Craig belong to the grayish-red base of the Upper Old +Red formation. They lie about five miles south of Elgin, not far distant +from where the palaeozoic deposits of the coast-side lean against the +great primary nucleus of the interior. We pass from the town, through +deep rich fields, carefully cultivated and well inclosed: the country, +as we advance on the moorlands, becomes more open; the homely cottage +takes the place of the neat villa; the brown heath, of the grassy lea; +and unfenced patches of corn here and there alternate with plantings of +dark sombre firs, in their mediocre youth. At length we near the +southern boundary of the landscape,--an undulating moory ridge, +partially planted; and see where a deep gap in the outline opens a way +to the upland districts of the province, a lively hill-stream descending +towards the east through the bed which it has scooped out for itself in +a soft red conglomerate. The section we have come to explore lies along +its course: it has been the grand excavator in the densely occupied +burial-ground over which it flows; but its labors have produced but a +shallow scratch after all,--a mere ditch, some ten or twelve feet deep, +in a deposit the entire depth of which is supposed greatly to exceed a +hundred fathoms. The shallow section, however, has been well wrought; +and its suit of fossils is one of the finest, both from the great +specific variety which they exhibit, and their excellent state of +keeping, that the Upper Old Red Sandstone has anywhere furnished. + +So great is the incoherency of the matrix, that we can dig into it with +our chisels, unassisted by the hammer. It reminds us of the loose +gravelly soil of an ancient graveyard, partially consolidated by a +night's frost,--a resemblance still further borne out by the condition +and appearance of its organic contents. The numerous bones disseminated +throughout the mass do not exist, as in so many of the Upper Old Red +Sandstone rocks, as mere films or impressions, but in their original +forms, retaining bulk as well as surface: they are true graveyard bones, +which may be detached entire from the inclosing mass, and of which, were +we sufficiently well acquainted with the anatomy of the long-perished +races to which they belonged, entire skeletons might be reconstructed. +I succeeded in disinterring, during my short stay, an occipital plate of +great beauty, fretted on its outer surface by numerous tubercles, +confluent on its anterior part, and surrounded on its posterior portion, +where they stand detached, by punctulated markings. I found also a fine +scale of _Holoptychius Nobilissimus_, and a small tooth, bent somewhat +like a nail that had been drawn out of its place by two opposite +wrenches, and from the internal structure of which Professor Owen has +bestowed on the animal to which it belonged the generic name Dendrodus. +I have ascertained, however, through the indispensable assistance of Mr. +George Sanderson, that the genus Holoptychius of Agassiz, named from a +peculiarity in the sculpture of the scale, is the identical genus +Dendrodus of Professor Owen, named from a peculiarity in the structure +of the teeth. Those teeth of the genus Holoptychius, whether of the +Lower or Upper Old Red, that belong to the second or _reptile_ row with +which the creature's jaws were furnished, present in the cross section +the appearance of numerous branches, like those of trees, radiating from +a centre like spokes from the nave of a wheel; and their arborescent +aspect suggested to the Professor the name Dendrodus. It seems truly +wonderful, when one but considers it, to what minute and obscure +ramifications the variety of pattern, specific and generic, which nature +so loves to preserve, is found to descend. We see great diversity of +mode and style in the architecture of a city built of brick; but while +the houses are different, the bricks are always the same. It is not so +in nature. The bricks are as dissimilar as the houses. We find, for +instance, those differences, specific and generic, that obtain among +fishes, both recent and extinct, descending to even the microscopic +structure of their teeth. There is more variety of pattern,--in most +cases of very elegant pattern,--in the sliced fragments of the teeth of +the ichthyolites of a single formation, than in the carved blocks of an +extensive calico-print yard. Each species has its own distinct pattern, +as if in all the individuals of which it consisted the same block had +been employed to stamp it; each genus has its own general _type_ of +pattern, as if the same inventive idea, variously altered and modified, +had been wrought upon in all. In the genus Dendrodus, for instance, it +is the generic type, that from a central nave there should radiate, +spoke-like, a number of leafy branches; but in the several species, the +branches, if I may so express myself, belong to different shrubs, and +present dissimilar outlines. There are no repetitions of earlier +patterns to be found among the generically different ichthyolites of +other formations. We see in the world of fashion old modes of ornament +continually reviving: the range of invention seems limited; and we find +it revolving, in consequence, in an irregular, ever-returning cycle. But +Infinite resource did not need to travel in a circle, and so we find no +return or doublings in its course. It has appeared to me, that an +argument against the transmutation of species, were any such needed, +might be founded on those inherent peculiarities of structure that are +ascertained thus to pervade the entire texture of the framework of +animals. If we find one building differing from another merely in +external form, we have no difficulty in conceiving how, by additions and +alterations, they might be made to present a uniform appearance; +transmutation, development, progression,--if one may use such +terms,--seem possible in such circumstances. But if the buildings differ +from each other, not only in external form, but also in every brick and +beam, bolt and nail, no mere scheme of external alteration can induce a +real resemblance. Every brick must be taken down, and every beam and +belt removed. The problem cannot be wrought by the remodelling of an old +house: there is no other mode of solving it save by the erection of a +new one. + +Among the singularly interesting Old Red fossils of Mr. Duff's +collection I saw the impression of a large ichthyolite from the superior +yellow sandstone of the Upper Old Red, which had been brought him by a +country diker only a few days before. In breaking open a building stone, +the diker had found the inside of it, he said, covered over with +curiously carved flowers; and, knowing that Mr. Duff had a turn for +curiosities, he had brought the flowers to him. The supposed flowers are +the sculpturings on the scales of the ichthyolite; and, true to the +analogy of the diker, on at least a first glance, they may be held to +resemble the rather equivocal florets of a cheap wall-paper, or of an +ornamental tile. The specimen exhibits the impressions of four rows of +oblong rectangular scales. One row contains seven of these, and another +eight. Each scale averages about an inch and a quarter in length, by +about three quarters of an inch in breadth; and the parallelogramical +field which it presents is occupied by a curious piece of carving. By a +sort of pictorial illusion, the device appears as if in motion: it would +seem as if a sudden explosion had taken place in the middle of the +field, and as if the numerous dislodged fragments, propelled all around +by the central force, were hurrying to the sides. But these seeming +fragments were not elevations in the original scale, but depressions. +They almost seem as if they had been indented into it, in the way one +sees the first heavy drops of a thunder shower indented into a platform +of damp sea sand; and this last peculiarity of appearance seems to have +suggested the name which this sole representative of an extinct genus +has received during the course of the last few weeks from Agassiz. An +Elgin gentleman forwarded to Neufchatel a singularly fine calotype of +the fossil, taken by Mr. Adamson of Edinburgh, with a full-size drawing +of a few of the scales; and from the calotype and the drawing the +naturalist has decided that the genus is entirely new, and that +henceforth it shall bear the descriptive name of Stagonolepis, or +drop-scale. As I looked for the first time on this broken fragment of an +ichthyolite,--the sole representative and record of an entire genus of +creatures that had been once called into existence to fulfil some wise +purpose of the Creator long since accomplished,--I bethought me of +Rogers's noble lines on the Torso,-- + + "And dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone, + (Thy giant limbs to night and chaos hurled) + Still sit as on the fragment of a world, + Surviving all?" + +Here, however, was a still more wonderful Torso than that of the +dismembered Hercules, which so awakened the enthusiasm of the poet. +Strange peculiarities of being,--singular habits, curious instincts, the +history of a race from the period when the all-producing Word had spoken +the first individuals into being, until, in circumstances unfitted for +their longer existence, or in some great annihilating catastrophe, the +last individuals perished,--were all associated with this piece of +sculptured stone; but, like some ancient inscription of the desert, +written in an unknown character and dead tongue, its dark meanings were +fast locked up, and no inhabitant of earth possessed the key. Does that +key anywhere exist, save in the keeping of Him who knows all and +produced all, and to whom there is neither past nor future? Or is there +a record of creation kept by those higher intelligences,--the first-born +of spiritual natures,--whose existence stretches far into the eternity +that has gone by, and who possess, as their inheritance, the whole of +the eternity to come? We may be at least assured, that nothing can be +too low for angels to remember, that was not too low for God to create. + +I took coach for Edinburgh on the following morning; for with my visit +to Scat-Craig terminated the explorations of my Summer Ramble. During +the summer of the present year I have found time to follow up some of +the discoveries of the last. In the course of a hasty visit to the +island of Eigg, I succeeded in finding _in situ_ reptile remains of the +kind which I had found along the shores in the previous season, in +detached water-rolled masses. The deposit in which they occur lies deep +in the Oolite. In some parts of the island there rest over it +alternations of beds of trap and sedimentary strata, to the height of +more than a thousand feet; but in the line of coast which intervenes +between the farm-house of Keill and the picturesque shieling described +in my fifth chapter, it has been laid bare by the sea immediately under +the cliffs, and we may see it jutting out at a low angle from among the +shingle and rolled stones of the beach for several hundred feet +together, charged everywhere with the teeth, plates, and scales of +Ganoid fishes, and somewhat more sparingly, with the ribs, vertebrae, and +digital bones of saurians. But a full description of this interesting +deposit, as its discovery belongs to the Summer Ramble of a year, the +ramblings of which are not yet completed, must await some future time. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +SUPPLEMENTARY. + + Supplementary--Isolated reptile Remains in Eigg--Small Isles + revisited--The Betsey again--Storm bound--Tacking--Becalmed--Medusae + caught and described--Rain--A Shoal of Porpoises--Change of + Weather--The bed-ridden Woman--The Poor Law Act for + Scotland--Geological Excursion--Basaltic Columns--Oolitic + Beds--Abundance of Organic Remains--Hybodus Teeth--Discovery of + reptile Remains _in situ_--Musical Sand of Laig + re-examined--Explanation suggested--Sail for Isle Ornsay--Anchored + Clouds--A Leak sprung--Peril of the Betsey--At work with Pump and + Pails--Safe in Harbor--Return to Edinburgh. + + +It is told of the "Spectator," on his own high authority, that having +"read the controversies of some great men concerning the antiquities of +Egypt, he made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the measure +of a pyramid, and that, so soon as he had set himself right in that +particular, he returned to his native country with great satisfaction." +My love of knowledge has not carried me altogether so far, chiefly, I +dare say, because my voyaging opportunities have not been quite so +great. Ever since my ramble of last year, however, I have felt, I am +afraid, a not less interest in the geologic antiquities of Small Isles +than that cherished by "Spectator" with respect to the comparatively +modern antiquities of Egypt; and as, in a late journey to these islands +the object of my visit involved but a single point, nearly as insulated +as the dimensions of a pyramid, I think I cannot do better than shelter +myself under the authority of the short-faced gentleman who wrote +articles in the reign of Queen Anne. I had found in Eigg, in +considerable abundance and fine keeping, reptile remains of the Oolite; +but they had occurred in merely rolled masses, scattered along the +beach. I had not discovered the bed in which they had been originally +deposited, and could neither tell its place in the system, nor its +relation to the other rocks of the island. The discovery was but a +half-discovery,--the half of a broken medal, with the date on the +missing portion. And so, immediately after the rising of the General +Assembly in June last [1845], I set out to revisit Small Isles, +accompanied by my friend Mr. Swanson, with the determination of +acquainting myself with the burial-place of the old Oolitic reptiles, if +it lay anywhere open to the light. + +We found the Betsey riding in the anchoring ground at Isle Ornsay, in +her foul-weather dishabille, with her topmast struck and in the yard, +and her cordage and sides exhibiting in their weathered aspect the +influence of the bleaching rains and winds of the previous winter. She +was at once in an undress and getting old, and, as seen from the shore +through rain and spray,--for the weather was coarse and boisterous,--she +had apparently gained as little in her good looks from either +circumstance as most other ladies do. We lay storm-bound for three days +at Isle Ornsay, watching from the window of Mr. Swanson's dwelling the +incessant showers sweeping down the loch. On the morning of Saturday, +the gale, though still blowing right ahead, had moderated; the minister +was anxious to visit this island charge, after his absence of several +weeks from them at the Assembly; and I, more than half afraid that my +term of furlough might expire ere I had reached my proposed scene of +exploration, was as anxious as he; and so we both resolved, come what +might, on doggedly beating our way adown the Sound of Sleat to Small +Isles. If the wind does not fail us, said my friend, we have little +more than a day's work before us, and shall get into Eigg about +midnight. We had but one of our seamen aboard, for John Stewart was +engaged with his potato crop at home; but the minister was content, in +the emergency, to rank his passenger as an able-bodied seaman; and so, +hoisting sail and anchor, we got under way, and, clearing the loch, +struck out into the Sound. + +We tacked in long reaches for several hours, now opening up in +succession the deep withdrawing lochs of the mainland, now clearing +promontory after promontory in the island district of Sleat. In a few +hours we had left a bulky schooner, that had quitted Isle Ornsay at the +same time, full five miles behind us; but as the sun began to decline, +the wind began to sink; and about seven o'clock, when we were nearly +abreast of the rocky point of Sleat, and about half-way advanced in our +voyage, it had died into a calm; and for full twenty hours thereafter +there was no more sailing for the Betsey. We saw the sun set, and the +clouds gather, and the pelting rain come down, and nightfall, and +morning break, and the noon-tide hour pass by, and still were we +floating idly in the calm. I employed the few hours of the Saturday +evening that intervened between the time of our arrest and nightfall, in +fishing from our little boat for medusae with a bucket. They had risen by +myriads from the bottom as the wind fell, and were mottling the green +depths of the water below and around far as the eye could reach. Among +the commoner kinds,--the kind with the four purple rings on the area of +its flat bell, which ever vibrates without sound, and the kind with the +fringe of dingy brown, and the long stinging tails, of which I have +sometimes borne from my swimming excursions the nettle-like smart for +hours,--there were at least two species of more unusual occurrence, both +of them very minute. The one, scarcely larger than a shilling, bore the +common umbiliferous form, but had its area inscribed by a pretty +orange-colored wheel; the other, still more minute, and which presented +in the water the appearance of a small hazel-nut of a brownish-yellow +hue, I was disposed to set down as a species of beroe. On getting one +caught, however, and transferred to a bowl, I found that the +brownish-colored, melon-shaped mass, though ribbed like the beroe, did +not represent the true outline of the animal; it formed merely the +centre of a transparent gelatinous bell, which, though scarce visible in +even the bowl, proved a most efficient instrument of motion. Such were +its contractile powers, that its sides nearly closed at every stroke, +behind the opaque orbicular centre, like the legs of a vigorous swimmer; +and the animal, unlike its more bulky congeners,--that, despite their +slow but persevering flappings, seemed greatly at the mercy of the tide, +and progressed all one way,--shot, as it willed, backwards, forwards, or +athwart. As the evening closed, and the depths beneath presented a +dingier and yet dingier green, until at length all had become black, the +distinctive colors of the acelpha,--the purple, the orange, and the +brown,--faded and disappeared, and the creatures hung out, instead, +their pale phosphoric lights, like the lanterns of a fleet hoisted high +to prevent collision in the darkness. Now they gleamed dim and +indistinct as they drifted undisturbed through the upper depths, and now +they flamed out bright and green, like beaten torches, as the tide +dashed them against the vessel's sides. I bethought me of the gorgeous +description of Coleridge, and felt all its beauty:-- + + "They moved in tracks of shining white, + And when they reared, the elfish light + Fell off in hoary flakes. + Within the shadow of the ship + I watched their rich attire,-- + Blue, glassy green, and velvet black: + They curled, and swam, and every track + Was a flash of golden fire." + +A crew of three, when there are watches to set, divides wofully ill. As +there was, however, nothing to do in the calm, we decided that our first +watch should consist of our single seaman, and the second of the +minister and his friend. The clouds, which had been thickening for +hours, now broke in torrents of rain, and old Alister got into his +water-proof oil-skin and souwester, and we into our beds. The seams of +the Betsey's deck had opened so sadly during the past winter, as to be +no longer water-tight, and the little cabin resounded drearily in the +darkness, like some dropping cave, to the ceaseless patter of the +leakage. We continued to sleep, however, somewhat longer than we +ought,--for Alister had been unwilling to waken the minister; but we at +length got up, and, relieving watch the first from the tedium of being +rained upon and doing nothing, watch the second was set to do nothing +and be rained upon in turn. We had drifted during the night-time on a +kindly tide, considerably nearer our island, which we could now see +looming blue and indistinct through the haze some seven or eight miles +away. The rain ceased a little before nine, and the clouds rose, +revealing the surrounding lands, island and main,--Rum, with its abrupt +mountain-peaks,--the dark Cuchullins of Skye,--and, far to the +south-east, where Inverness bounds on Argyllshire, some of the tallest +hills in Scotland,--among the rest, the dimly-seen Ben-Wevis. But long +wreaths of pale gray cloud lay lazily under their summits, like shrouds +half drawn from off the features of the dead, to be again spread over +them, and we concluded that the dry weather had not yet come. A little +before noon we were surrounded for miles by an immense but +thinly-spread shoal of porpoises, passing in pairs to the south, to +prosecute, on their own behalf, the herring fishing in Lochfine or +Gareloch; and for a full hour the whole sea, otherwise so silent, became +vocal with long-breathed blowings, as if all the steam-tenders of all +the railways in Britain were careering around us; and we could see +slender jets of spray rising in the air on every side, and glossy black +backs and pointed fins, that looked as if they had been fashioned out of +Kilkenny marble, wheeling heavily along the surface. The clouds again +began to close as the shoal passed, but we could now hear in the +stillness the measured sound of oars, drawn vigorously against the +gunwale in the direction of the island of Eigg, still about five miles +distant, though the boat from which they rose had not yet come in sight. +"Some of my poor people," said the minister, "coming to tug us ashore!" +We were boarded in rather more than half an hour after,--for the sounds +in the dead calm had preceded the boat by miles,--by four active young +men, who seemed wonderfully glad to see their pastor; and then, amid the +thickening showers, which had recommenced heavy as during the night, +they set themselves to tow us into the harbor. The poor fellows had a +long and fatiguing pull, and were thoroughly drenched ere, about six +o'clock in the evening, we had got up to our anchoring ground, and +moored, as usual, in the open tideway between _Eilan Chasteil_ and the +main island. There was still time enough for an evening discourse, and +the minister, getting out of his damp clothes, went ashore and preached. + +The evening of Sunday closed in fog and rain, and in fog and rain the +morning of Monday arose. The ceaseless patter made dull music on deck +and skylight above, and the slower drip, drip, through the leaky beams, +drearily beat time within. The roof of my bed was luckily water-tight; +and I could look out from my snuggery of blankets on the desolations of +the leakage, like Bacon's philosopher surveying a tempest from the +shore. But the minister was somewhat less fortunate, and had no little +trouble in diverting an ill-conditioned drop that had made a dead set at +his pillow. I was now a full week from Edinburgh, and had seen and done +nothing; and, were another week to pass after the same manner,--as, for +aught that appeared, might well happen,--I might just go home again, as +I had come, with my labor for my pains. In the course of the afternoon, +however, the weather unexpectedly cleared up, and we set out somewhat +impatiently through the wet grass, to visit a cave a few hundred yards +to the west of _Naomh Fraingh_, in which it had been said the +Protestants of the island might meet for the purposes of religious +worship, were they to be ejected from the cottage erected by Mr. +Swanson, in which they had worshipped hitherto. We reexamined, in the +passing, the pitch stone dike mentioned in a former chapter, and the +charnel cave of Frances; but I found nothing to add to my former +descriptions, and little to modify, save that perhaps the cave appeared +less dark, in at least the outer half of its area, than it had seemed to +me in the former year, when examined by torch-light, and that the +straggling twilight, as it fell on the ropy sides, green with moss and +mould, and on the damp bone-strewn floor, overmantled with a still +darker crust, like that of a stagnant pool, seemed also to wear its tint +of melancholy greenness, as if transmitted through a depth of sea-water. +The cavern we had come to examine we found to be a noble arched opening +in a dingy-colored precipice of augitic trap,--a cave roomy and lofty as +the nave of a cathedral, and ever resounding to the dash of the sea; but +though it could have amply accommodated a congregation of at least five +hundred, we found the way far too long and difficult for at least the +weak and the elderly, and in some places inaccessible at full flood; and +so we at once decided against the accommodation which it offered. But +its shelter will, I trust, scarce be needed. + +On our return to the Betsey, we passed through a straggling group of +cottages on the hill-side, one of which, the most dilapidated and +smallest of the number, the minister entered, to visit a poor old woman, +who had been bed-ridden for ten years. Scarce ever before had I seen so +miserable a hovel. It was hardly larger than the cabin of the Betsey, +and a thousand times less comfortable. The walls and roof, formed of +damp grass-grown turf, with a few layers of unconnected stone in the +basement tiers, seemed to constitute one continuous hillock, sloping +upwards from foundation to ridge, like one of the lesser moraines of +Agassiz, save where the fabric here and there bellied outwards or +inwards, in perilous dilapidation, that seemed but awaiting the first +breeze. The low chinky door opened direct into the one wretched +apartment of the hovel, which we found lighted chiefly by holes in the +roof. The back of the sick woman's bed was so placed at the edge of the +opening, that it had formed at one time a sort of partition to the +portion of the apartment, some five or six feet square, which contained +the fire-place; but the boarding that had rendered it such had long +since fallen away, and it now presented merely a naked rickety frame to +the current of cold air from without. Within a foot of the bed-ridden +woman's head there was a hole in the turf-wall, which was, we saw, +usually stuffed with a bundle of rags, but which lay open as we entered, +and which furnished a downward peep of sea and shore, and the rocky +_Eilan Chasteil_, with the minister's yacht riding in the channel hard +by. The little hole in the wall had formed the poor creature's only +communication with the face of the external world for ten weary years. +She lay under a dingy coverlet, which, whatever its original hue, had +come to differ nothing in color from the graveyard earth, which must so +soon better supply its place. What perhaps first struck the eye was the +strange flatness of the bed-clothes, considering that a human body lay +below: there seemed scarce bulk enough under them for a human skeleton. +The light of the opening fell on the corpse-like features of the +woman,--sallow, sharp, bearing at once the stamp of disease and of +famine; and yet it was evident, notwithstanding, that they had once been +agreeable,--not unlike those of her daughter, a good-looking girl of +eighteen, who, when we entered, was sitting beside the fire. Neither +mother nor daughter had any English; but it was not difficult to +determine, from the welcome with which the minister was greeted from the +sick-bed, feeble as the tones were, that he was no unfrequent visitor. +He prayed beside the poor creature, and, on coming away, slipped +something into her hand. I learned that not during the ten years in +which she had been bed-ridden had she received a single farthing from +the proprietor, nor, indeed, had any of the poor of the island, and that +the parish had no session-funds. I saw her husband a few days after,--an +old worn-out man, with famine written legibly in his hollow cheek and +eye, and on the shrivelled frame, that seemed lost in his tattered +dress; and he reiterated the same sad story. They had no means of +living, he said, save through the charity of their poor neighbors, who +had so little to spare; for the parish or the proprietor had never given +them anything. He had once, he added, two fine boys, both sailors, who +had helped them; but the one had perished in a storm off the Mull of +Cantyre, and the other had died of fever when on a West India voyage; +and though their poor girl was very dutiful, and staid in their crazy +hut to take care of them in their helpless old age, what other could she +do in a place like Eigg than just share with them their sufferings? It +has been recently decided by the British Parliament, that in cases of +this kind the starving poor shall not be permitted to enter the law +courts of the country, there to sue for a pittance to support life, +until an intermediate newly-erected court, alien to the Constitution, +before which they must plead at their own expense, shall have first +given them permission to prosecute their claims. And I doubt not that +many of the English gentlemen whose votes swelled the majority, and made +it such, are really humane men, friendly to an equal-handed justice, and +who hold it to be the peculiar glory of the Constitution, as well shown +by De Lolme, that it has not one statute-book for the poor, and another +for the rich, but the same law and the same administration of law for +all. They surely could not have seen that the principle of their Poor +Law Act for Scotland sets the pauper beyond the pale of the Constitution +in the first instance, that he may be starved in the second. The +suffering paupers of this miserable island cottage would have all their +wants fully satisfied in the grave, long ere they could establish at +their own expense, at Edinburgh, their claim to enter a court of law. I +know not a fitter case for the interposition of our lately formed +"Scottish Association for the Protection of the Poor" than that of this +miserable family; and it is but one of many which the island of Eigg +will be found to furnish. + +After a week's weary waiting, settled weather came at last; and the +morning of Tuesday rose bright and fair. My friend, whose absence at the +General Assembly had accumulated a considerable amount of ministerial +labor on his hands, had to employ the day professionally; and as John +Stewart was still engaged with his potato crop, I was necessitated to +sally out on my first geological excursion alone. In passing +vessel-wards, on the previous year, from the _Ru Stoir_ to the +farm-house of Keill, along the escarpment under the cliffs, I had +examined the shores somewhat too cursorily during the one-half of my +journey, and the closing evening had prevented me from exploring them +during the other half at all; and I now set myself leisurely to retrace +the way backwards from the farm-house to the _Stoir_. I descended to the +bottom of the cliffs, along the pathway which runs between Keill and the +solitary midway shieling formerly described, and found that the basaltic +columns over head, which had seemed so picturesque in the twilight, lost +none of their beauty when viewed by day. They occur in forms the most +beautiful and fantastic; here grouped beside some blind opening in the +precipice, like pillars cut round the opening of a tomb, on some +rock-front in Petraea; there running in long colonnades, or rising into +tall porticoes; yonder radiating in straight lines from some common +centre, resembling huge pieces of fan-work, or bending out in bold +curves over some shaded chasm, like rows of crooked oaks projecting from +the steep sides of some dark ravine. The various beds of which the +cliffs are composed, as courses of ashlar compose a wall, are of very +different degrees of solidity: some are of hard porphyritic or basaltic +trap; some of soft Oolitic sandstone or shale. Where the columns rest on +a soft stratum, their foundations have in many places given way, and +whole porticoes and colonnades hang perilously forward in tottering +ruin, separated from the living rock behind by deep chasms. I saw one of +these chasms, some five or six feet in width, and many yards in length, +that descended to a depth which the eye could not penetrate; and another +partially filled up with earth and stones, through which, along a dark +opening not much larger than a chimney-vent, the boys of the island find +a long descending passage to the foot of the precipice, and emerge into +light on the edge of the grassy talus half-way down the hill. It +reminded me of the tunnel in the rock through which Imlac opened up a +way of escape to Rasselas from the happy valley,--the "subterranean +passage," begun "where the summit hung over the middle part," and that +"issued out behind the prominence." + +From the commencement of the range of cliffs, on half-way to the +shieling, I found the shore so thickly covered up by masses of trap, the +debris of the precipices above, that I could scarce determine the nature +of the bottom on which they rested. I now, however, reached a part of +the beach where the Oolitic beds are laid bare in thin party-colored +strata, and at once found something to engage me. Organisms in vast +abundance, chiefly shells and fragmentary portions of fishes, lie +closely packed in their folds. One limestone bed, occurring in a dark +shale, seems almost entirely composed of a species of small oyster; and +some two or three other thin beds, of what appears to be either a +species of small Mytilus or Avicula, mixed up with a few shells +resembling large Paludina, and a few more of the gaper family, so +closely resembling existing species, that John Stewart and Alister at +once challenged them as _smurslin_, the Hebridean name for a well-known +shell in these parts,--the _Mya truncata_. The remains of +fishes,--chiefly Ganoid scales and the teeth of Placoids,--lie scattered +among the shells in amazing abundance. On the surface of a single +fragment, about nine inches by five, which I detached from one of the +beds, and which now lies before me, I reckon no fewer than twenty-five +teeth, and twenty-two on the area of another. They are of very various +forms,--some of them squat and round, like ill-formed small +shot,--others spiky and sharp, not unlike flooring nails,--some straight +as needles, some bent like the beak of a hawk,--some, like the palatal +teeth of the Acrodus of the Lias, resemble small leeches; some, bearing +a series of points ranged on a common base, like masts on the hull of a +vessel, the tallest in the centre, belong to the genus Hybodus. There is +a palpable approximation in the teeth of the leech-like form to the +teeth with the numerous points. Some of the specimens show the same +plicated structure common to both; and on some of the leech backs, if I +may so speak, there are protuberant knobs, that indicate the places of +the spiky points on the hybodent teeth. I have got three of each kind +slit up by Mr. George Sanderson, and the internal structure appears to +be the same. A dense body of bone is traversed by what seem innumerable +roots, resembling those of woody shrubs laid bare along the sides of +some forest stream. Each internal opening sends off on every side its +myriads of close-laid filaments; and nowhere do they lie so thickly as +in the line of the enamel, forming, from the regularity with which they +are arranged, a sort of framing to the whole section. It is probable +that the Hybodus,--a genus of shark which became extinct some time about +the beginning of the chalk,--united, like the shark of Port Jackson, a +crushing apparatus of palatal teeth to its lines of cutting ones. Among +the other remains of these beds I found a dense fragment of bone, +apparently reptilian, and a curious dermal plate punctulated with +thick-set depressions, bounded on one side by a smooth band, and +altogether closely resembling some saddler's thimble that had been cut +open and straightened. + +Following the beds downwards along the beach, I found that one of the +lowest which the tide permitted me to examine,--a bed colored with a +tinge of red,--was formed of a denser limestone than any of the others, +and composed chiefly of vast numbers of small univalves resembling +Neritae. It was in exactly such a rock I had found, in the previous year, +the reptile remains; and I now set myself, with no little eagerness, to +examine it. One of the first pieces I tore up contained a well-preserved +Plesiosaurian vertebra; a second contained a vertebra and a rib; and, +shortly after, I disinterred a large portion of a pelvis. I had at +length found, beyond doubt, the reptile remains _in situ_. The bed in +which they occur is laid bare here for several hundred feet along the +beach, jutting out at a low angle among boulders and gravel, and the +reptile remains we find embedded chiefly in its under side. It lies low +in the Oolite. All the stratified rocks of the island, with the +exception of a small Liasic patch, belong to the Lower Oolite, and the +reptile-bed occurs deep in the base of the system,--low in its relation +to the nether division, in which it is included. I found it nowhere +rising to the level of high-water mark. It forms one of the foundation +tiers of the island, which, as the latter rises over the sea in some +places to the height of about fourteen hundred feet, its upper peaks and +ridges must overlie the bones, making allowance for the dip, to the +depth of at least sixteen hundred. Even at the close of the Oolitic +period this sepulchral stratum must have been a profoundly ancient one. +In working it out, I found two fine specimens of fish jaws, still +retaining their ranges of teeth;--ichthyodorulites,--occipital plates of +various forms, either reptile or ichthyic,--Ganoid scales, of nearly the +same varieties of pattern as those in the Weald of Morayshire,--and the +vertebrae and ribs, with the digital, pelvic, and limb-bones, of +saurians. It is not unworthy of remark, that in none of the beds of this +deposit did I find any of the more characteristic shells of the +system,--Ammonites, Belemnites, Gryphites, or Nautili. + +I explored the shores of the island on to the _Ru Stoir_, and thence to +the Bay of Laig; but though I found detached masses of the reptile bed +occurring in abundance, indicating that its place lay not far beyond the +fall of ebb, in no other locality save the one described did I find it +laid bare. I spent some time beside the Bay of Laig in reexamining the +musical sand, in the hope of determining the peculiarities on which its +sonorous qualities depended. But I examined, and cross-examined it in +vain. I merely succeeded in ascertaining, in addition to my previous +observations, that the loudest sounds are elicited by drawing the hand +slowly through the incoherent mass, in a segment of a circle, at the +full stretch of the arm, and that the vibrations which produce them +communicate a peculiar titillating sensation to the hand or foot by +which they are elicited, extending in the foot to the knee, and in the +hand to the elbow. When we pass the wet finger along the edge of an +ale-glass partially filled with water, we see the vibrations thickly +wrinkling the surface: the undulations which, communicated to the air, +produce sound, render themselves, when communicated to the water, +visible to the eye; and the titillating feeling seems but a modification +of the same phenomenon acting on the nerves and fluids of the leg or +arm. It appears to be produced by the wrinklings of the vibrations, if I +may so speak, passing along sentient channels. The sounds will +ultimately be found dependent, I am of opinion, though I cannot yet +explain the principle, on the purely quartzose character of the sand, +and the friction of the incoherent upper strata against under strata +coherent and damp. I remained ten days in the island, and went over all +my former ground, but succeeded in making no further discoveries. + +On the morning of Wednesday, June 25th, we set sail for Isle Ornsay, +with a smart breeze from the north-west. The lower and upper sky was +tolerably clear, and the sun looked cheerily down on the deep blue of +the sea; but along the higher ridges of the land there lay long level +strata of what the meteorologists distinguish as parasitic clouds. When +every other patch of vapor in the landscape was in motion, scudding +shorewards from the Atlantic before the still-increasing gale, there +rested along both the Scuir of Eigg and the tall opposite ridge of the +island, and along the steep peaks of Rum, clouds that seemed as if +anchored, each on its own mountain-summit, and over which the gale +failed to exert any propelling power. They were stationary in the middle +of the rushing current, when all else was speeding before it. It has +been shown that these parasitic clouds are mere local condensations of +strata of damp air passing along the mountain-summits, and rendered +visible but to the extent in which the summits affect the temperature. +Instead of being stationary, they are ever-forming and ever-dissipating +clouds,--clouds that form a few yards in advance of the condensing hill, +and that dissipate a few yards after they have quitted it. I had nothing +to do on deck, for we had been joined at Eigg by John Stewart; and so, +after watching the appearance of the stationary clouds for some little +time, I went below, and, throwing myself into the minister's large +chair, took up a book. The gale meanwhile freshened, and freshened yet +more; and the Betsey leaned over till her lee chain-plate lay along in +the water. There was the usual combination of sounds beneath and around +me,--the mixture of guggle, clunk, and splash,--of low, continuous rush, +and bluff, loud blow, which forms in such circumstances the voyager's +concert. I soon became aware, however, of yet another species of sound, +which I did not like half so well,--a sound as of the washing of a +shallow current over a rough surface; and, on the minister coming below, +I asked him, tolerably well prepared for his answer, what it might +mean. "It means," he said, "that we have sprung a leak, and a rather bad +one; but we are only some six or eight miles from the Point of Sleat, +and must soon catch the land." He returned on deck, and I resumed my +book. Presently, however, the rush became greatly louder; some other +weak patch in the Betsey's upper works had given way, and anon the water +came washing up from the lee side along the edge of the cabin floor. I +got upon deck to see how matters stood with us; and the minister, easing +off the vessel for a few points, gave instant orders to shorten sail, in +the hope of getting her upper works out of the water, and then to unship +the companion ladder, beneath which a hatch communicated with the low +strip of hold under the cabin, and to bring aft the pails. We lowered +our foresail; furled up the mainsail half-mast high; John Stewart took +his station at the pump; old Alister and I, furnished with pails, took +ours, the one at the foot, the other at the head, of the companion, to +hand up and throw over; a young girl, a passenger from Eigg to the +mainland, lent her assistance, and got wofully drenched in the work; +while the minister, retaining his station at the helm, steered right on. +But the gale had so increased, that, notwithstanding our diminished +breadth of sail, the Betsey, straining hard in the rough sea, still lay +in to the gunwale; and the water, pouring in through a hundred opening +chinks in her upper works, rose, despite of our exertions, high over +plank, and beam, and cabin-floor, and went dashing against beds and +lockers. She was evidently filling, and bade fair to terminate all her +voyagings by a short trip to the bottom. Old Alister, a seaman of thirty +years' standing, whose station at the bottom of the cabin stairs enabled +him to see how fast the water was gaining on the Betsey, but not how the +Betsey was gaining on the land, was by no means the least anxious among +us. Twenty years previous he had seen a vessel go down in exactly +similar circumstances, and in nearly the same place, and the +reminiscence, in the circumstances, seemed rather an uncomfortable one. +It had been a bad evening, he said, and the vessel he sailed in, and a +sloop, her companion, were pressing hard to gain the land. The sloop had +sprung a leak, and was straining, as if for life and death, under a +press of canvas. He saw her outsail the vessel to which he belonged, +but, when a few shots a-head she gave a sudden lurch, and disappeared +from the surface instantaneously as a vanishing spectre, and neither +sloop nor crew were ever more heard of. + +There are, I am convinced, few deaths less painful than some of those +untimely and violent ones at which we are most disposed to shudder. We +wrought so hard at pail and pump,--the occasion, too, was one of so much +excitement, and tended so thoroughly to awaken our energies,--that I was +conscious, during the whole time, of an exhilaration of spirits rather +pleasurable than otherwise. My fancy was active, and active, strange as +the fact may seem, chiefly with ludicrous objects. Sailors tell +regarding the flying Dutchman, that he was a hard-headed captain of +Amsterdam, who, in a bad night and head wind, when all the other vessels +of his fleet were falling back on the port they had recently quitted, +obstinately swore that, rather than follow their example, he would keep +beating about till the day of judgment. And the Dutch captain, says the +story, was just taken at his word, and is beating about still. When +matters were at the worst with us, we got under the lea of the point of +Sleat. The promontory interposed between us and the roll of the sea; the +wind gradually took off; and, after having seen the water gaining fast +and steadily on us for considerably more than an hour, we, in turn, +began to gain on the water. It came ebbing out of drawers and beds, and +sunk downwards along pannels and table-legs,--a second retiring deluge; +and we entered Isle Ornsay with the cabin-floor all visible, and less +than two feet water in the hold. On the following morning, taking leave +of my friend the minister, I set off, on my return homewards, by the +Skye steamer, and reached Edinburgh on the evening of Saturday. + + + + + RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST; + + OR, + + TEN THOUSAND MILES OVER THE FOSSILIFEROUS + DEPOSITS OF SCOTLAND. + + + + +RAMBLES OF A GEOLOGIST; + +OR, + +TEN THOUSAND MILES OVER THE FOSSILIFEROUS DEPOSITS OF SCOTLAND.[10] + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + Embarkation--A foundered Vessel--Lateness of the Harvest dependent + on the Geological character of the Soil--A Granite Harvest and an + Old Red Harvest--Cottages of Redstone and of Granite--Arable Soil + of Scotland the result of a Geological Grinding Agency--Locality of + the Famine of 1846--Mr. Longmuir's Fossils--Geology necessary to a + Theologian--Popularizers of Science when dangerous--"Constitution + of Man," and "Vestiges of Creation"--Atop of the Banff Coach--A + Geologist's Field Equipment--The trespassing "Stirk"--Silurian + Schists inlaid with Old Red--Bay of Gamrie how + formed--Gardenstone--Geological Free-masonry illustrated--How to + break an Ichthyolite Nodule--An old Rhyme mended--A raised + Beach--Fossil Shells--Scotland under water at the time of the + Boulder Clays. + + +From circumstances that in no way call for explanation, my usual +exploratory ramble was thrown this year (1847) from the middle of July +into the middle of September; and I embarked at Granton for the north +just as the night began to count hour against hour with the day. The +weather was fine, and the voyage pleasant. I saw by the way, however, at +least one melancholy memorial of a hurricane which had swept the eastern +coasts of the island about a fortnight before, and filled the provincial +newspapers with paragraphs of disaster. Nearly opposite where the Red +Head lifts its mural front of Old Red Sandstone a hundred yards over the +beach, the steamer passed a foundered vessel, lying about a mile and a +half off the land, with but her topmast and the point of her peak over +the surface. Her vane, still at the mast-head, was drooping in the calm; +and its shadow, with that of the fresh-colored _spar_ to which it was +attached, white atop and yellow beneath, formed a well-defined +undulatory strip on the water, that seemed as if ever in the process of +being rolled up, and yet still retained its length unshortened. Every +recession of the swell showed a patch of mainsail attached to the peak: +the sail had been hoisted to its full stretch when the vessel went down. +And thus, though no one survived to tell the story of her disaster, +enough remained to show that she had sprung a leak when straining in the +gale, and that, when staggering under a press of canvas towards the +still distant shore, where, by stranding her, the crew had hoped to save +at least their lives, she had disappeared with a sudden lurch, and all +aboard had perished. I remembered having read, among other memorabilia +of the hurricane, without greatly thinking of the matter, that "a large +sloop had foundered off the Red Head,--name unknown." But the minute +portion of the wreck which I saw rising over the surface, to certify, +like some frail memorial in a churchyard, that the dead lay beneath, had +an eloquence in it which the words wanted, and at once sent the +imagination back to deal with the stern realities of the disaster, and +the feelings abroad to expatiate over saddened hearths and melancholy +homesteads, where for many a long day the hapless perished would be +missed and mourned, but where the true story of their fate, though too +surely guessed at, would never be known. + +The harvest had been early; and on to the village of Stonehaven, and a +mile or two beyond, where the fossiliferous deposits end and the primary +begin, the country presented from the deck only a wide expanse of +stubble. Every farm-steading we passed had its piled stack-yard; and the +fields were bare. But the line of demarcation between the Old Red +Sandstone and the granitic districts formed also a separating line +between an earlier and later harvest; the fields of the less kindly +subsoil derived from the primary rocks were, I could see, still speckled +with sheaves; and, where the land lay high, or the exposure was +unfavorable, there were reapers at work. All along in the course of my +journey northward from Aberdeen I continued to find the country covered +with shocks, and laborers employed among them; until, crossing the Spey, +I entered on the fossiliferous districts of Moray; and then, as in the +south, the champaign again showed a bare breadth of stubble, with here +and there a ploughman engaged in turning it down. The traveller bids +farewell at Stonehaven to not only the Old Red Sandstone and the +early-harvest districts, but also to the rich wheat-lands of the +country, and does not again fairly enter upon them until, after +travelling nearly a hundred miles, he passes from Banffshire into the +province of Moray. He leaves behind him at the same line the +wheat-fields and the cottages built of red stone, to find only barley +and oats, and here and there a plot of rye, associated with cottages of +granite and gneiss, hyperstene and mica schist; but on crossing the +Spey, the red cottages reappear, and fields of rich wheat-land spread +out around them, as in the south. The circumstance is not unworthy the +notice of the geologist. It is but a tedious process through which the +minute lichen, settling on a surface of naked stone, forms in the course +of ages a soil for plants of greater bulk and a higher order; and had +Scotland been left to the exclusive operation of this slow agent, it +would be still a rocky desert, with perhaps here and there a strip of +alluvial meadow by the side of a stream, and here and there an insulated +patch of rich soil among the hollows of the crags. It might possess a +few gardens for the spade, but no fields for the plough. We owe our +arable land to that comparatively modern geologic agent, whatever its +character, that crushed, as in a mill, the upper parts of the +surface-rocks of the kingdom, and then overlaid them with their own +debris and rubbish to the depth of from one to forty yards. This debris, +existing in one locality as a boulder-clay more or less finely +comminuted, in another as a grossly pounded gravel, forms, with few +exceptions, that subsoil of the country on which the existing vegetation +first found root; and, being composed mainly of the formations on which +it more immediately rests, it partakes of their character,--bearing a +comparatively lean and hungry aspect over the primary rocks, and a +greatly more fertile one over those deposits in which the organic +matters of earlier creations lie diffused. Saxon industry has done much +for the primary districts of Aberdeen and Banffshires, though it has +failed to neutralize altogether the effects of causes which date as +early as the times of the Old Red Sandstone; but in the Highlands, which +belong almost exclusively to the non-fossiliferous formations, and which +were, on at least the western coasts, but imperfectly subjected to that +grinding process to which we owe our subsoils, the poor Celt has +permitted the consequences of the original difference to exhibit +themselves in full. If we except the islands of the Inner Hebrides, the +famine of 1846 was restricted in Scotland to the primary districts. + +I made it my first business, on landing in Aberdeen, to wait on my +friend Mr. Longmuir, that I might compare with him a few geological +notes, and benefit by his knowledge of the surrounding country. I was, +however, unlucky enough to find that he had gone, a few days before, on +a journey, from which he had not yet returned; but, through the kindness +of Mrs. Longmuir, to whom I took the liberty of introducing myself, I +was made free of his stone-room, and held half an hour's conversation +with his Scotch fossils of the Chalk. These had been found, as the +readers of the _Witness_ must remember from his interesting paper on the +subject, on the hill of Dudwick, in the neighborhood of Ellon, and were +chiefly impressions--some of them of singular distinctness and +beauty--in yellow flint. I saw among them several specimens of the +Inoceramus, a thin-shelled, ponderously-hinged conchifer, characteristic +of the Cretaceous group, but which has no living representative; with +numerous flints, traversed by rough-edged, bifurcated hollows, in which +branched sponges had once lain; a well-preserved Pecten; the impressions +of spines of Echini of at least two distinct species; and the +nicely-marked impression of part of a Cidaris, with the balls on which +the sockets of the club-like spines had been fitted existing in the +print as spherical moulds, in which shot might be cast, and with the +central ligamentary depression, which in the actual fossil exists but as +a minute cavity, projecting into the centre of each hollow sphere, like +the wooden fusee into the centre of a bomb-shell. This latter cast, fine +and sharp as that of a medal taken in sulphur, seems sufficient of +itself to establish two distinct points: in the first place, that the +siliceous matter of which the flint is composed, though now so hard and +rigid, must, in its original condition, have been as impressible as wax +softened to receive the stamp of the seal; and, in the next, that though +it was thus yielding in its character, it could not have greatly shrunk +in the process of hardening. I looked with no little interest on these +remains of a Scotch formation now so entirely broken up, that, like +those ruined cities of the East which exist but as mere lines of +wrought material barring the face of the desert, there has not "been +left one stone of it upon another," but of which the fragments, though +widely scattered, bear imprinted upon them, like the stamped bricks of +Babylon, the story of its original condition, and a record of its +_founders_. All Mr. Longmuir's Cretaceous fossils from the hill of +Dudwick are of flint,--a substance not easily ground down by the +denuding agencies. + +I found several other curious fossils in Mr. Longmuir's collection. +Greatly more interesting, however, than any of the specimens which it +contains, is the general fact, that it should be the collection of a +Free Church minister, sedulously attentive to the proper duties of his +office, but who has yet found time enough to render himself an +accomplished geologist; and whose week-day lectures on the science +attract crowds, who receive from them, in many instances, their first +knowledge of the strange revolutions of which our globe has been the +subject, blent with the teachings of a wholesome theology. The present +age, above all that has gone before, is peculiarly the age of physical +science; and of all the physical sciences, not excepting astronomy +itself, geology, though it be a fact worthy of notice, that not one of +our truly accomplished geologists is an infidel, is the science of which +infidelity has most largely availed itself. And as the theologian in a +metaphysical age,--when skepticism, conforming to the character of the +time, disseminated its doctrines in the form of nicely abstract +speculations,--had, in order that the enemy might be met in his own +field, to become a skilful metaphysician, he must now, in like manner, +address himself to the tangibilities of natural history and geology, if +he would avoid the danger and disgrace of having his flank turned by +every sciolist in these walks whom he may chance to encounter. It is +those identical bastions and outworks that are _now_ attacked, which +must be _now_ defended; not those which were attacked some eighty or a +hundred years ago. And as he who succeeds in first mixing up fresh and +curious truths, either with the objections by which religion is assailed +or the arguments by which it is defended, imparts to his cause all the +interest which naturally attaches to these truths, and leaves to his +opponent, who passes over them after him as at second hand, a subject +divested of the fire-edge of novelty, I can deem Mr. Longmuir well and +not unprofessionally employed, in connecting with a sound creed the +picturesque marvels of one of the most popular of the sciences, and by +this means introducing them to his people, linked, from the first, with +right associations. According to the old fiction, the look of the +basilisk did not kill unless the creature saw before it was seen;--its +mere _return_ glance was harmless; and there is a class of thoroughly +dangerous writers who in this respect resemble the basilisk. It is +perilous to give them a first look of the public. They are formidable +simply as the earliest popularizers of some interesting science, or the +first promulgators of some class of curious little-known facts, with +which they mix up their special contributions of error,--often the only +portion of their writings that really belongs to themselves. Nor is it +at all so easy to _counteract_ as to _confute_ them. A masterly +confutation of the part of their works truly their own may, from its +subject, be a very unreadable book: it can have but the insinuated +poison to deal with, unmixed with the palatable pabulum in which the +poison has been conveyed; and mere treatises on poisons, whether moral +or medical, are rarely works of a very delectable order. It seems to be +on this principle that there exists no confutation of the "Constitution +of Man" in which the ordinary reader finds amusement to carry him +through; whereas the work itself, full of curious miscellaneous +information, is eminently readable; and that the "Vestiges of +Creation,"--a treatise as entertaining as the "Arabian Nights,"--bids +fair, not from the amount of error which it contains, but from the +amount of fresh and interestingly told truth with which the error is +mingled, to live and do mischief when the various solidly-scientific +replies which it has called forth are laid upon the shelf. Both the +"Constitution" and the "Vestiges" had the advantage, so essential to the +basilisk, of taking the first glance of the public on their respective +subjects; whereas their confutators have been able to render them back +but mere _return_ glances. The only efficiently counteractive mode of +looking down the danger, in cases of this kind, is the mode adopted by +Mr. Longmuir. + +There was a smart frost next morning; and, for a few hours, my seat on +the top of the Banff coach, by which I travelled across the country to +where the Gamrie and Banff roads part company, was considerably more +cool than agreeable. But the keen morning improved into a brilliant day, +with an atmosphere transparent as if there had been no atmosphere at +all, through which the distant objects looked out as sharp of outline, +and in as well-defined light and shadow, as if they had occupied the +background, not of a Scotch, but of an Italian landscape. A few +speck-like sails, far away on the intensely blue sea, which opened upon +us in a stretch of many leagues, as we surmounted the moory ridge over +Macduff, gleamed to the sun with a radiance bright as that of the sparks +of a furnace blown to a white heat. The land, uneven of surface, and +open, and abutting in bold promontories on the frith, still bore the +sunny hue of harvest, and seemed as if stippled over with shocks from +the ridgy hill summits, to where ranges of giddy cliffs flung their +shadows across the beach. I struck off for Gamrie by a path that runs +eastward, nearly parallel to the shore,--which at one or two points it +overlooks from dark-colored cliffs of grauwacke slate,--to the fishing +village of Gardenstone. My dress was the usual fatigue suit of russet, +in which I find I can work amid the soil of ravines and quarries with +not only the best effect, but with even the least possible sacrifice of +appearance: the shabbiest of all suits is a good suit spoiled. My +hammer-shaft projected from my pocket; a knapsack, with a few changes of +linen, slung suspended from my shoulders; a strong cotton umbrella +occupied my better hand; and a gray maud, buckled shepherd-fashion +aslant the chest, completed my equipment. There were few travellers on +the road, which forked off on the hill-side a short mile away, into two +branches, like a huge letter Y, leaving me uncertain which branch to +choose; and I made up my mind to have the point settled by a woman of +middle age, marked by a hard, _manly_ countenance, who was coming up +towards me, bound apparently for the Banff or Macduff market, and +stooping under a load of dairy produce. She too, apparently, had her +purpose to serve or point to settle; for as we met, she was the first to +stand; and, sharply scanning my appearance and aspect at a glance, she +abruptly addressed me. "Honest man," she said, "do you see yon house wi' +the chimla?" "That house with the farm-steadings and stacks beside it?" +I replied. "Yes." "Then I'd be obleeged if ye wald just stap in as ye'r +gaing east the gate, and tell _our_ folk that the stirk has gat fra her +tether, an' 'ill brak on the wat clover. Tell them to sen' for her +_that_ minute." I undertook the commission; and, passing the endangered +stirk, that seemed luxuriating, undisturbed by any presentiment of +impending peril, amid the rich swathe of a late clover crop, still damp +with the dews of the morning frost, I tapped at the door of the +farm-house, and delivered my message to a young good-looking girl, in +nearly the words of the woman:--"The gude-wife bade me tell _them_," I +said, "to send that instant for the stirk, for she had gat fra her +tether, and would brak on the wat clover." The girl blushed just a very +little, and thanked me; and then, after obliging me, in turn, by laying +down for me my proper route,--for I had left the question of the forked +road to be determined at the farm-house,--she set off at high speed, to +rescue the unconscious stirk. A walk of rather less than two hours +brought me abreast of the Bay of Gamrie,--a picturesque indentation of +the coast, in the formation of which the agency of the old denuding +forces, operating on deposits of unequal solidity, may be distinctly +traced. The surrounding country is composed chiefly of Silurian schists, +in which there is deeply inlaid a detached strip of mouldering Old Red +Sandstone, considerably more than twenty miles in length, and that +varies from two to three miles in breadth. It seems to have been let +down into the more ancient formation,--like the keystone of a bridge +into the ringstones of the arch when the work is in the act of being +completed,--during some of those terrible convulsions which cracked and +rent the earth's crust, as if it had been an earthen pipkin brought to a +red heat and then plunged into cold water. Its consequent occurrence in +a lower tier of the geological edifice than that to which it originally +belonged has saved it from the great denudation which has swept from the +surface of the surrounding country the tier composed of its contemporary +beds and strata, and laid bare the grauwacke on which this upper tier +rested. But where it presents its narrow end to the sea, as the older +houses in our more ancient Scottish villages present their gables to the +street, the waves of the German Ocean, by incessantly charging against +it, propelled by the tempests of the stormy north, have hollowed it +into the Bay of Gamrie, and left the more solid grauwacke standing out +in bold promontories on either side, as the headlands of Gamrie and +Troup. + +In passing downwards on the fishing village of Gardenstone, mainly in +the hope of procuring a guide to the ichthyolite beds, I saw a laborer +at work with a pickaxe, in a little craggy ravine, about a hundred yards +to the left of the path, and two gentlemen standing beside him. I paused +for a moment, to ascertain whether the latter were not brother-workers +in the geologic field. "Hilloa!--here,"--shouted out the stouter of the +two gentlemen, as if, by some _clairvoyant_ faculty, he had dived into +my secret thought; "come here." I went down into the ravine, and found +the laborer engaged in disinterring ichthyolitic nodules out of a bed of +gray stratified clay, identical in its composition with that of the +Cromarty fish-beds; and a heap of freshly-broken nodules, speckled with +the organic remains of the Lower Old Red Sandstone,--chiefly occipital +plates and scales,--lay beside him. "Know you aught of these?" said the +stouter gentleman, pointing to the heap. "A little," I replied; "but +your specimens are none of the finest. Here, however, is a dorsal plate +of Coccosteus; and here a scattered group of scales of Osteolepis; and +here the occipital plates of _Cheirolepis Cummingiae_; and here the spine +of the anterior dorsal of _Diplacanthus striatus_." My reading of the +fossils was at once recognized, like the mystic sign of the freemason, +as establishing for me a place among the geologic brotherhood; and the +stout gentleman producing a spirit-flask and a glass, I pledged him and +his companion in a bumper. "Was I not sure?" he said, addressing his +friend: "I knew by the cut of his jib, notwithstanding his shepherd's +plaid, that he was a wanderer of the scientific cast." We discussed the +peculiarities of the deposit, which, in its mineralogical character, and +generically in that of its organic contents, resembles, I found, the +fish-beds of Cromarty (though, curiously enough, the intervening +contemporary deposits of Moray and the western parts of Banffshire +differ widely, in at least their chemistry, from both); and we were +right good friends ere we parted. To men who travel for amusement, +incident is incident, however trivial in itself, and always worth +something. I showed the younger of the two geologists my mode of +breaking open an ichthyolitic nodule, so as to secure the best possible +section of the fish. "Ah," he said, as he marked a style of handling the +hammer which, save for the fifteen years' previous practice of the +operative mason, would be perhaps less complete,--"Ah, you must have +broken open a great many." His own knowledge of the formation and its +ichthyolites had been chiefly derived, he added, from a certain little +treatise on the "Old Red Sandstone," rather popular than scientific, +which he named. I of course claimed no acquaintance with the work; and +the conversation went on. + +The ill luck of my new friends, who had been toiling among the nodules +for hours without finding an ichthyolite worth transferring to their +bag, showed me that, without excavating more deeply than my time +allowed, I had no chance of finding good specimens. But, well content to +have ascertained that the ichthyolite bed of Gamrie is identical in its +composition, and, generically at least, in its organisms, with the beds +with which I was best acquainted, I rose to come away. The object which +I next proposed to myself was, to determine whether, as at Eathie and +Cromarty, the fossils here appear not only on the hill-side, but also +crop out along the shore. On taking leave, however, of the geologists, I +was reminded by the younger of what I might have otherwise +forgotten,--a raised beach in the immediate neighborhood (first +described by Mr. Prestwich, in his paper on the Gamrie ichthyolites), +which contains shells of the existing species at a higher level than +elsewhere,--so far as is yet known,--on the east coast of Scotland. And, +kindly conducting me till he had brought me full within view of it, we +parted. The ichthyolites which I had just been laying open occur on the +verge of that Strathbogie district in which the Church controversy raged +so hot and high; and by a common enough trick of the associative +faculty, they now recalled to my mind a stanza which memory had somehow +caught when the battle was at the fiercest. It formed part of a satiric +address, published in an Aberdeen newspaper, to the not very respectable +non-intrusionists who had smoked tobacco and drank whisky in the parish +church at Culsalmond, on the day of a certain forced settlement there, +specially recorded by the clerks of the Justiciary Court. + + "Tobacco and whisky cost siller, + And meal is but scanty at hame; + But gang to the stane-mason M----r, + Wi' Old Red Sandstone fish he'll fill your wame." + +Rather a dislocated line that last, I thought, and too much in the style +in which Zachary Boyd sings "Pharaoh and the Pascal." And as it is wrong +to leave the beast of even an enemy in the ditch, however long its ears, +I must just try and set it on its legs. Would it not run better thus? + + "Tobacco and whisky cost siller, + An' meal is but scanty at hame; + But gang to the stane-mason M----r," + He'll pang wi' ichth'olites your wame,-- + Wi' _fish_!! as Agassiz has ca'ed 'em, + In Greek, like themsel's, _hard_ an' _odd_, + That were baked in stane pies afore Adam + Gaed names to the haddocks and cod. + +Bad enough as rhyme, I suspect; but conclusive as evidence to prove +that the animal spirits, under the influence of the bracing walk, the +fine day, and the agreeable recounter at the fish-beds,--not forgetting +the half-gill bumper,--had mounted very considerably above their +ordinary level at the editorial desk. + +The raised beach may be found on the slopes of a grass-covered eminence, +once the site of an ancient hill-fort, and which still exhibits, along +the rim-like edge of the flat area atop, scattered fragments of the +vitrified walls. A general covering of turf restricted my examination of +the shells to one point, where a land-slip on a small scale had laid the +deposit bare; but I at least saw enough to convince me that the debris +of the shell-fish used of old as food by the garrison had not been +mistaken for the remains of a raised beach,--a mistake which in other +localities has occurred, I have reason to believe, oftener than once. +The shells, some of them exceedingly minute, and not of edible species, +occur in layers in a siliceous stratified sand, overlaid by a bed of +bluish-colored silt. I picked out of the sand two entire specimens of a +full-grown Fusus, little more than half an inch in length,--the _Fusus +turricola_; and the greater number of the fragments that lay bleaching +at the foot of the broken slope, in a state of chalky friability, seemed +to be fragments of those smaller bivalves, belonging to the genera +_Donax_, _Venus_, and _Mactra_, that are so common on flat sandy shores. +But when the sea washed over these shells, they could have been the +denizens of at least no _flat_ shore. The descent on which they occur +sinks downwards to the existing beach, over which it is elevated at this +point two hundred and thirty feet, at an angle with the horizon of from +thirty-five to forty degrees. Were the land to be now submerged to where +they appear on the hill-side, the bay of Gamrie, as abrupt in its +slopes as the upper part of Loch Lomond or the sides of Loch Ness, +would possess a depth of forty fathoms water at little more than a +hundred yards from the shore. I may add, that I could trace at this +height no marks of such a continuous terrace around the sides of the bay +as the waves would have infallibly excavated in the diluvium, had the +sea stood at a level so high, or, according to the more prevalent view, +had the land stood at a level so low, for any considerable time; though +the green banks which sweep around the upper part of the inflection, +unscarred by the defacing plough, would scarce have failed to retain +some mark of where the surges had broken, had the surges been long +there. Whatever may in this special case be the fact, however, I cannot +doubt that in the comparatively modern period of the boulder clays, +Scotland lay buried under water to a depth at least five times as great +as the space between this ancient sea-beach and the existing tide-line. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + Character of the Rocks near Gardenstone--A Defunct Father-lasher--A + Geological Inference--Village of Gardenstone--The drunken + Scot--Gardenstone Inn--Lord Gardenstone--A Tempest threatened--The + Author's Ghost Story--The Lady in Green--Her Appearance and + Tricks--The Rescued Children--The murdered Peddler and his + Pack--Where the Green Dress came from--Village of Macduff--Peculiar + Appearance of the Beach at the Mouth of the Deveron--Dr. Emslie's + Fossils--_Pterichthys quadratus_--Argillaceous Deposit of + Blackpots--Pipe-laying in Scotland--Fossils of Blackpots Clay--Mr. + Longmuir's Description of them--Blackpots Deposit a Re-formation of + a Liasic Patch--Period of its Formation. + + +I lingered on the hill-side considerably longer than I ought; and then, +hurrying downwards to the beach, passed eastwards under a range of +abrupt, mouldering precipices of red sandstone, to the village. From the +lie of the strata, which, instead of inclining coastwise, dip towards +the interior of the country, and present in the descent seawards the +outcrop of lower and yet lower deposits of the formation, I found it +would be in vain to look for the ichthyolite beds along the shore. They +may possibly be found, however, though I lacked time to ascertain the +fact, along the sides of a deep ravine, which occurs near an old +ecclesiastical edifice of gray stone, perched, nest-like, half-way up +the bank, on a green hummock that overlooks the sea. The rocks, laid +bare by the tide, belong to the bed of coarse-grained red sandstone, +varying from eighty to a hundred and fifty feet in thickness, which lies +between the lower fish-bed and the great conglomerate, and which, in not +a few of its strata, passes itself into a species of conglomerate, +different only from that which it overlies, in being more finely +comminuted. The continuity of this bed, like that of the deposit on +which it rests, is very remarkable. I have found it occurring at many +various points, over an area at least ten thousand square miles in +extent, and bearing always the same well-marked character of a more +thoroughly ground-down conglomerate than the great conglomerate on which +it reposes. The underlying bed is composed of broken fragments of the +rocks below, crushed, as if by some imperfect rudimentary process, like +that which in a mill merely breaks the grain; whereas, in the bed above, +a portion of the previously-crushed materials seems to have been +subjected to some further attritive process, like that through which, in +the mill, the broken grain is ground down into meal or flour. + +As I passed onwards, I saw, amid a heap of drift-weed stranded high on +the beach by the previous tide, a defunct father-lasher, with the two +defensive spines which project from its opercles stuck fast into little +cubes of cork, that had floated its head above water, as the +tyro-swimmer floats himself upon bladders; and my previous acquaintance +with the habits of a fishing village enabled me at once to determine why +and how it had perished. Though almost never used as food on the eastern +coast of Scotland, it had been inconsiderate enough to take the +fisherman's bait, as if it had been worthy of being eaten; and he had +avenged himself for the trouble it had cost him, by mounting it on cork, +and sending it off, to wander between wind and water, like the Flying +Dutchman, until it died. Was there ever on earth a creature save man +that could have played a fellow-mortal a trick at once so ingeniously +and gratuitously cruel? Or what would be the proper inference, were I to +find one of the many-thorned ichthyolites of the Lower Old Red Sandstone +with the spines of its pectorals similarly fixed on cubes of +lignite?--that there had existed in these early ages not merely +_physical death_, but also _moral evil_; and that the being who +perpetrated the evil could not only inflict it simply for the sake of +the pleasure he found in it, and without prospect of advantage to +himself, but also by so adroitly reversing, fiend-like, the purposes of +the benevolent Designer, that the weapons given for the defence of a +poor harmless creature should be converted into the instruments of its +destruction. It was not without meaning that it was forbidden by the law +of Moses to seethe a kid in its mother's milk. + +A steep bulwark in front, against which the tide lashes twice every +twenty-four hours,--an abrupt hill behind,--a few rows of squalid +cottages built of red sandstone, much wasted by the keen sea-winds,--a +wilderness of dunghills and ruinous pig-styes,--women seated at the +doors, employed in baiting lines or mending nets,--groups of men +lounging lazily at some gable-end fronting the sea,--herds of ragged +children playing in the lanes,--such are the components of the fishing +village of Gardenstone. From the identity of name, I had associated the +place with that Lord Gardenstone of the Court of Sessions who published, +late in the last century, a volume of "Miscellanies in Prose and Verse," +containing, among other clever things, a series of tart criticisms on +English plays, transcribed, it was stated in the preface, from the +margins and fly-leaves of the books of a "small library kept open by his +Lordship" for the amusement of travellers at the inn of some village in +his immediate neighborhood; and taking it for granted, somehow, that +Gardenstone was the village, I was looking around me for the inn, in the +hope that where his Lordship had opened a library I might find a dinner. +But failing to discern it, I addressed myself on the subject to an +elderly man in a pack-sheet apron, who stood all alone, looking out upon +the sea, like Napoleon, in the print, from a projection of the bulwark. +He turned round, and showed, by an unmistakable expression of eye and +feature, that he was what the servant girl in "Guy Mannering" +characterizes as "very particularly drunk,"--not stupidly, but happily, +funnily, conceitedly drunk, and full of all manner of high thoughts of +himself. "It'll be an awfu' coorse nicht," he said, "fra the sea." "Very +likely," I replied, reiterating my query in a form that indicated some +little confidence of receiving the needed information; "I daresay you +could point me out the public-house here?" "Aweel, I wat, that I can; +but what's that?" pointing to the straps of my knapsack;--"are ye a +sodger on the Queen's account, or ye'r ain?" "On my own, to be sure; but +have ye a public-house here?" "Ay, twa; ye'll be a traveller?" "O yes, +great traveller, and very hungry: have I passed the best public-house?" +"Ay; and ye'll hae come a gude stap the day?" A woman came up, with +spectacles on nose, and a piece of white seam-work in her hand; and, +cutting short the dialogue by addressing myself to her, she at once +directed me to the public-house. "Hoot, gude-wife," I heard the man say, +as I turned down the street, "we suld ha'e gotten mair oot o' him. He's +a great traveller yon, an' has a gude Scots tongue in his head." + +Travellers, save when, during the herring season, an occasional +fish-curer comes the way, rarely bait at the Gardenstone inn; and in the +little low-browed room, with its windows in the thatch, into which, as +her best, the land-lady ushered me, I certainly found nothing to +identify the _locale_ with that chosen by the literary lawyer for his +open library. But, according to Ferguson, though "learning was scant, +provision was good;" and I dined sumptuously on an immense platter of +fried flounders. There was a little bit of cold pork added to the fare; +but, aware from previous experience of the pisciverous habits of the +swine of a fishing village, I did what I knew the defunct pig must have +very frequently done before me,--satisfied a keenly-whetted appetite on +fish exclusively. I need hardly remind the reader that Lord +Gardenstone's inn was not that of Gardenstone, but that of +Laurence-kirk,--the thriving village which it was the special ambition +of this law-lord of the last century to create; and which, did it +produce only its famed snuff-boxes, with the invisible hinges, would be +rather a more valuable boon to the country than that secured to it by +those law-lords of our own days, who at one fell blow disestablished the +national religion of Scotland, and broke off the only handle by which +their friends the politicians could hope to _manage_ the country's old +vigorous Presbyterianism. Meanwhile it was becoming apparent that the +man with the apron had as shrewdly anticipated the character of the +coming night as if he had been soberer. The sun, ere its setting, +disappeared in a thick leaden haze, which enveloped the whole heavens; +and twilight seemed posting on to night a full hour before its time. I +settled a very moderate bill, and set off under the cliffs at a round +pace, in the hope of scaling the hill, and gaining the high road atop +which leads to Macduff, ere the darkness closed. I had, however, +miscalculated my distance; I, besides, lost some little time in the +opening of the deep ravine to which I have already referred as that in +which possibly the fish-beds may be found cropping out; and I had got +but a little beyond the gray ecclesiastical ruin, with its lonely +burying-ground, when the tempest broke and the night fell. + +One of the last objects which I saw, as I turned to take a farewell look +of the bay of Gamrie, was the magnificent promontory of Troup Head, +outlined in black on a ground of deep gray, with its two terminal stacks +standing apart in the sea. And straightway, through one of those tricks +of association so powerful in raising, as if from the dead, buried +memories of things of which the mind has been oblivious for years, there +started up in recollection the details of an ancient ghost-story, of +which I had not thought before for perhaps a quarter of a century. It +had been touched, I suppose, in its obscure, unnoted corner, as Ithuriel +touched the toad, by the apparition of the insulated stacks of Troup, +seen dimly in the thickening twilight over the solitary burying-ground. +For it so chances that one of the main incidents of the story bears +reference to an insulated sea-stack; and it is connected altogether, +though I cannot fix its special locality, with this part of the coast. +The story had been long in my mother's family, into which it had been +originally brought by a great-grandfather of the writer, who quitted +some of the seaport villages of Banffshire for the northern side of the +Moray Frith, about the year 1718; and, when pushing on in the darkness, +straining as I best could, to maintain a sorely-tried umbrella against +the capricious struggles of the tempest, that now tatooed furiously upon +its back as if it were a kettle-drum, and now got underneath its stout +ribs, and threatened to send it up aloft like a balloon, and anon +twisted it from side to side, and strove to turn it inside out, like a +Kilmarnock night-cap,--I employed myself in arranging in my mind the +details of the narrative, as they had been communicated to me half an +age before by a female relative. + +The opening of the story, though it existed long ere the times of Sir +Walter Scott or the Waverly novels, bears some resemblance to the +opening in the "Monastery," of the story of the White Lady of Avenel. +The wife of a Banffshire proprietor of the minor class had been about +six months dead, when one of her husband's ploughmen, returning on +horseback from the smithy, in the twilight of an autumn evening, was +accosted, on the banks of a small stream, by a stranger lady, tall and +slim, and wholly attired in green, with her face wrapped up in the hood +of her mantle, who requested to be taken up behind him on the horse, and +carried across. There was something in the tones of her voice that +seemed to thrill through his very bones, and to insinuate itself, in the +form of a chill fluid, between his skull and the scalp. The request, +too, appeared a strange one; for the rivulet was small and low, and +could present no serious bar to the progress of the most timid +traveller. But the man, unwilling ungallantly to offend a lady, turned +his horse to the bank, and she sprang up lightly behind him. She was, +however, a personage that could be better seen than felt; she came in +contact with the ploughman's back, he said, as if she had been an +ill-filled sack of wool; and when, on reaching the opposite side of the +streamlet, she leaped down as slightly as she had mounted, and he turned +fearfully round to catch a second glimpse of her, it was in the +conviction that she was a creature considerably less earthly in her +texture than himself. She had opened, with two pale, thin arms, the +enveloping hood, exhibiting a face equally pale and thin, which seemed +marked, however, by the roguish, half-humorous expression of one who had +just succeeded in playing off a good joke. "My dead mistress!!" +exclaimed the ploughman. "Yes, John, _your mistress_," replied the +ghost. "But ride home, my bonny man, for it's growing late: you and I +will be better acquainted ere long." John accordingly rode home and told +his story. + +Next evening, about the same hour, as two of the laird's servant-maids +were engaged in washing in an out-house, there came a slight tap to the +door. "Come in," said one of the maids; and the lady entered, dressed, +as on the previous night, in green. She swept past them to the inner +part of the washing-room; and, seating herself on a low bench, from +which, ere her death, she used occasionally to superintend their +employment, she began to question them, as if still in the body, about +the progress of their work. The girls, however, were greatly too +frightened to make any reply. She then visited an old woman who had +nursed the laird, and to whom she used to show, ere her departure, +greatly more kindness than her husband. And she now seemed as much +interested in her welfare as ever. She inquired whether the laird was +kind to her, and looking round her little smoky cottage, regretted she +should be so indifferently lodged, and that her cupboard, which was +rather of the emptiest at the time, should not be more amply furnished. +For nearly a twelvemonth after, scarce a day passed in which she was not +seen by some of the domestics; never, however, except on one occasion, +after the sun had risen, or before it had set. The maids could see her, +in the gray of the morning flitting like a shadow round their beds, or +peering in upon them at night through the dark window-panes, or at +half-open doors. In the evening she would glide into the kitchen or some +of the out-houses,--one of the most familiar and least dignified of her +class that ever held intercourse with mankind,--and inquire of the girls +how they had been employed during the day; often, however, without +obtaining an answer, though from a cause different from that which had +at first tied their tongues. For they had become so regardless of her +presence, viewing her simply as a troublesome mistress, who had no +longer any claim to be heeded, that when she entered, and they had +dropped their conversation, under the impression that their visitor was +a creature of flesh and blood like themselves, they would again resume +it, remarking that the entrant was "only the green lady." Though always +cadaverously pale, and miserable looking, she affected a joyous +disposition, and was frequently heard to laugh, even when invisible. At +one time, when provoked by the studied silence of a servant girl, she +flung a pillow at her head, which the girl caught up and returned; at +another, she presented her first acquaintance, the ploughman, with what +seemed to be a handful of silver coin, which he transferred to his +pocket, but which, on hearing her laugh, he drew out, and found to be +merely a handful of slate shivers. On yet another occasion, the man, +when passing on horseback through a clump of wood, was repeatedly struck +from behind the trees by little pellets of turf; and, on riding into the +thicket, he found that his assailant was the green lady. To her husband +she never appeared; but he frequently heard the tones of her voice +echoing from the lower apartments, and the faint peal of her cold, +unnatural laugh. + +One day at noon, a year after her first appearance, the old nurse was +surprised to see her enter the cottage; as all her previous visits had +been made early in the morning or late in the evening; whereas +now,--though the day was dark and lowering, and a storm of wind and rain +had just broken out,--still it _was_ day. "Mammie," she said, "I cannot +open the heart of the laird, and I have nothing of my own to give you; +but I think I can do something for you now. Go straight to the White +House [that of a neighboring proprietor], and tell the folk there to set +out with all the speed of man and horse for the black rock in the sea, +at the foot of the crags, or they'll rue it dearly to their dying day. +Their bairns, foolish things, have gone out to the rock, and the tide +has flowed around them; and, if no help reach them soon, they'll be all +scattered like sea-ware on the shore ere the fall of the sea. But if you +go and tell your story at the White House, mammie, the bairns will be +safe for an hour to come, and there will be something done by their +mother to better you, for the news." The woman went, as directed, and +told her story; and the father of the children set out on horseback in +hot haste for the rock,--a low, insulated skerry, which, lying on a +solitary part of the beach, far below the line of flood, was shut out +from the view of the inhabited country by a wall of precipices, and +covered every tide by several feet of water. On reaching the edge of the +cliffs, he saw the black rock, as the woman had described, surrounded by +the sea, and the children clinging to its higher crags. But, though the +waves were fast rising, his attempts to ride out through the surf to the +poor little things were frustrated by their cries, which so frightened +his horse as to render it unmanageable; and so he had to gallop on to +the nearest fishing village for a boat. So much time was unavoidably +lost in consequence, that nearly the whole beach was covered by the sea, +and the surf had begun to lash the feet of the precipices behind; but +until the boat arrived, not a single wave dashed over the black rock; +though immediately after the last of the children had been rescued, an +immense wreath of foam rose twice a man's height over its topmost +pinnacle. + +The old nurse, on her return to the cottage, found the green lady +sitting beside the fire. "Mammie," she said, "you have made friends to +yourself to-day, who will be kinder to you than your foster-son. I must +now leave you. My time is out, and you'll be all left to yourselves; but +I'll have no rest, mammie, for many a twelvemonth to come. Ten years +ago, a travelling peddler broke into our garden in the fruit season, and +I sent out our old ploughman, who is now in Ireland, to drive him away. +It was on a Sunday, and everybody else was in church. The men struggled +and fought, and the peddler was killed. But though I at first thought of +bringing the case before the laird, when I saw the dead man's pack, with +its silks and its velvets, and this unhappy piece of green satin +(shaking her dress), my foolish heart beguiled me, and I made the +ploughman bury the peddler's body under our ash tree, in the corner of +our garden, and we divided his goods and money between us. You must bid +the laird raise his bones, and carry them to the churchyard; and the +gold, which you will find in the little bowl under the tapestry in my +room, must be sent to a poor old widow, the peddler's mother, who lives +on the shore of Leith. I must now away to Ireland to the ploughman; and +I'll be e'en less welcome to him, mammie, than at the laird's; but the +hungry blood cries loud against us both,--him and me,--and we must +suffer together. Take care you look not after me till I have passed the +knowe." She glided away, as she spoke, in a gleam of light; and when the +old woman had withdrawn her hand from her eyes, dazzled by the sudden +brightness, she saw only a large black gray-hound crossing the moor. And +the green lady was never afterwards seen in Scotland. The little hoard +of gold pieces, however, stored in a concealed recess of her former +apartment, and the mouldering ruins of the peddler under the ash tree, +gave evidence to the truth of her narrative. The story was hardly wild +enough for a night so drear and a road so lonely; its ghost-heroine was +but a homely ghost-heroine, too little aware that the same familiarity +which, according to the proverb, breeds contempt when exercised by the +denizens of this world, produces similar effects when too much indulged +in by the inhabitants of another. But the arrangement and restoration of +the details of the tradition,--for they had been scattered in my mind +like the fragments of a broken fossil,--furnished me with so much +amusement, when struggling with the storm, as to shorten by at least +one-half the seven miles which intervene between Gamrie and Macduff. +Instead, however, of pressing on to Banff, as I had at first intended, +I baited for the night at a snug little inn in the latter village, which +I reached just wet enough to enjoy the luxury of a strong clear fire of +Newcastle coal. + +Mrs. Longmuir had furnished me with a note of introduction to Dr. Emslie +of Banff, an intelligent geologist, familiar with the deposits of the +district; and, walking on to his place of residence next morning, in a +rain as heavy as that of the previous night, I made it my first business +to wait on him, and deliver the note. Ere, however, crossing the +Deveron, which flows between Banff and Macduff, I paused for a few +minutes in the rain, to mark the peculiar appearance presented by the +beach where the river disembogues into the frith. Occurring as a +rectangular spit in the line of the shore, with the expanded stream +widening into an estuary on its upper side, and the open sea on the +lower, it marks the scene of an obstinate contest between antagonist +forces,--the powerful sweep of the torrent, and the not less powerful +waves of the stormy north-east; and exists, in consequence, as a long +gravelly prism, which presents as steep an angle of descent to the waves +on the one side as to the current on the other. It is a true river bar, +beaten in from its proper place in the sea by the violence of the surf, +and fairly stranded. Dr. Emslie obligingly submitted to my inspection +his set of Gamrie fossils, containing several good specimens of +Pterichthys and Coccosteus, undistinguishable, like those I had seen on +the previous day, in their state of keeping, and the character of the +nodular matrices in which they lie, from my old acquaintance the +Cephalaspians of Cromarty. The animal matter which the bony plates and +scales originally contained has been converted, in both the Gamrie and +Cromarty ichthyolites, into a jet-black bitumen; and in both, the +inclosing nodules consist of a smoke-colored argillaceous limestone, +which formed around the organisms in a bed of stratified clay, and at +once exhibits, in consequence, the rectilinear lines of the +stratification, mechanical in their origin, and the radiating ones of +the sub-crystalline concretion, purely a trick of the chemistry of the +deposit. A Pterichthys in Dr. Emslie's collection struck me as different +in its proportions from any I had previously seen, though, from its +state of rather imperfect preservation, I hesitated to pronounce +absolutely upon the fact. I cannot now doubt, however, that it belonged +to a species not figured nor described at the time; but which, under the +name of _Pterichthys quadratus_, forms in part the subject of a still +unpublished memoir, in which Sir Philip Egerton, our first British +authority on fossil fish, has done me the honor to associate my humble +name with his own; and which will have the effect of reducing to the +ranks of the Pterichthyan genus the supposed genera _Pamphractus_ and +_Homothorax_. A second set of fossils, which Dr. Emslie had derived from +his tile-works at Blackpots, proved, I found, identical with those of +the Eathie Lias. As this Banffshire deposit had formed a subject of +considerable discussion and difference among geologists, I was curious +to examine it; and the Doctor, though the day was still none of the +best, kindly walked out with me, to bring under my notice appearances +which, in the haste of a first examination, I might possibly overlook, +and to show me yet another set of fossils which he kept at the works. He +informed me, as we went, that the Grauwacke (Lower Silurian) deposits of +the district, hitherto deemed so barren, had recently yielded their +organisms in a slate quarry at Gamrie-head; and that they belong to that +ancient family of the Pennatularia which, in this northern kingdom, +seems to have taken precedence of all the others. Judging from what now +appears, the Graptolite must be regarded as the first settler who +squatted for a living in that deep-sea area of undefined boundary +occupied at the present time by the bold wave-worn headlands and blue +hills of Scotland; and this new Banffshire locality not only greatly +extends the range of the fossil in reference to the kingdom, but also +establishes, in a general way, the fossiliferous identity of the Lower +Silurian deposits to the north of the Grampians with that of +Peebles-shire and Galloway in the south,--so far as I know, the only +other two Scottish districts in which this organism has been found. + +The argillaceous deposit of Blackpots occupies, in the form of a green +swelling bank, a promontory rather soft than bold in its contour, that +projects far into the sea, and forms, when tipped with its slim column +of smoke from the tile-kiln, a pleasing feature in the landscape. I had +set it down on the previous day, when it first caught my eye from the +lofty cliffs of Gamrie-head, at the distance of some ten or twelve +miles, as different in character from all the other features of the +prospect. The country generally is moulded on a framework of primary +rock, and presents headlands of hard, sharp outline, to the attrition of +the waves; whereas this single headland in the midst,--soft-lined, +undulatory, and plump,--seems suited to remind one of Burns's young Kirk +Alloway beauty disporting amid the thin old ladies that joined with her +in the dance. And it _is_ a greatly younger beauty than the Cambrian and +mica-schist protuberances that encroach on the sea on either side of it. +The sheds and kilns of a tile-work occupy the flat terminal point of the +promontory; and as the clay is valuable, in this tile-draining age, for +the facility with which it can be moulded into pipe-tiles (a purpose +which the ordinary clays of the north of Scotland, composed chiefly of +re-formations of the Old Red Sandstone, are what is technically termed +too _short_ to serve), it is gradually retreating inland before the +persevering spade and mattock of the laborer. The deposit has already +been drawn out into many hundred miles of cylindrical pipes, and is +destined to be drawn out into many thousands more,--such being one of +the strange metamorphoses effected in the geologic formations, now that +that curious animal the Bimana has come upon the stage; and at length it +will have no existence in the country, save as an immense system of +veins and arteries underlying the vegetable mould. Will these veins and +arteries, I marvel, form, in their turn, the _fossils_ of another +period, when a higher platform than that into which they have been laid +will be occupied to the full by plants and animals specifically +different from those of the present scene of things,--the existences of +a happier and more finished creation? My business to-day, however, was +with the fossils which the deposit now contains,--not with those which +it may ultimately form. + +The Blackpots clay is of a dark-bluish or greenish-gray color, and so +adhesive, that I now felt, when walking among it, after the softening +rains of the previous night and morning, as if I had got into a bed of +bird-lime. It is thinly charged with rolled pebbles, septaria, and +pieces of a bituminous shale, containing broken Belemnites, and +sorely-flattened Ammonites, that exist as thin films of a white chalky +lime. The pebbles, like those of the boulder-clay of the northern side +of the Moray Frith, are chiefly of the primary rocks and older +sandstones, and were probably in the neighborhood, in their present +rolled form, long ere the re-formation of the inclosing mass; while the +shale and the septaria are, as shown by their fossils, decidedly Liasic. +I detected among the conchifers a well-marked species of our northern +Lias, figured by Sowerby from Eathie specimens,--the _Plagiostoma +concentrica_; and among the Cephalopoda, though considerably broken, +the _Belemnite elongatus_ and _Belemnite lanceolata_, with the _Ammonite +Koenigi_ (_mutabilis_),--all Eathie shells. I, besides, found in the +bank a piece of a peculiar-looking quartzose sandstone, traversed by +hard jaspedeous veins of a brownish-gray color, which I have never +found, in Scotland at least, save associated with the Lias of our +north-eastern coasts. Further, my attention was directed by Dr. Emslie +to a fine Lignite in his collection, which had once formed some eighteen +inches or two feet of the trunk of a straight slender pine,--probably +the _Pinites Eiggensis_,--in which, as in most woods of the Lias and +Oolite, the annual rings are as strongly marked as in the existing firs +or larches of our hill-sides.[11] The Blackpots deposit is evidently a +re-formation of a Liasic patch, identical, both in mineralogical +character and in its organic remains, with the lower beds of the Eathie +Lias; while the fragments of shale which it contains belong chiefly to +an upper Liasic bed. So rich is the dark-colored tenacious argil of the +Inferior Lias of Eathie, that the geologist who walks over it when it is +still moist with the receding tide would do well to look to his +footing;--the mixture of soap and grease spread by the ship-carpenter +on his launch-slips, to facilitate the progress of his vessel seawards, +is not more treacherous to the tread: while the Upper Liasic deposit +which rests over it is composed of a dark slaty shale, largely charged +with bitumen. And of a Liasic deposit of this compound character, +consisting in larger part of an inferior argillaceous bed, and in lesser +part of a superior one of dark shale, the tile-clay of Blackpots has +been formed. + +I had next to determine whether aught remained to indicate the period of +its re-formation. The tile-works at the point of the promontory rest on +a bed of shell-sand, composed exclusively, like the sand so abundant on +the western coast of Scotland, of fragments of existing shells. These, +however, are so fresh and firm, that, though the stratum which they form +seems to underlie the clay at its edges, I cannot regard them as older +than the most modern of our ancient sea-margins. They formed, in all +probability, in the days of the old coast line, a white shelly beach, +under such a precipitous front of the dark clay as argillaceous deposits +almost always present to the undermining wear of the waves. On the +recession of the sea, however, to its present line, the abrupt, steep +front, loosened by the frosts and washed by the rains, would of course +gradually moulder down over them into a slope; and there would thus be +communicated to the shelly stratum, at least at its edges, an underlying +character. The true period of the re-formation of the deposit was, I can +have no doubt, that of the boulder-clay. I observed that the septaria +and larger masses of shale which the bed contains, bear, on +roughly-polished surfaces, in the line of their larger axes, the +mysterious groovings and scratchings of this period,--marks which I have +never yet known to fail in their chronological evidence. It may be +mentioned, too, simply as a fact, though one of less value than the +other, that the deposit occurs in its larger development exactly where, +in the average, the boulder-clays also are most largely developed,--a +little over that line where the waves for so many ages charged against +the coast, ere the last upheaval of the land or the recession of the sea +sent them back to their present margin. There had probably existed to +the west or north-west of the deposit, perhaps in the middle of the open +bay formed by the promontory on which it rests,--for the small +proportion of other than Liasic materials which it contains serves to +show that it could be derived from no great distance,--an outlier of the +Lower Lias. The icebergs of the cold glacial period, propelled along the +submerged land by some arctic current, or caught up by the gulf-stream, +gradually grated it down, as a mason's laborer grates down the surface +of the sandstone slab which he is engaged in polishing; and the +comminuted debris, borne eastwards by the current, was cast down here. +It has been stated that no Liasic remains have been found in the +boulder-clays of Scotland. They are certainly rare in the boulder-clays +of the northern shores of the Moray Frith; for there the nearest Lias, +bearing in a western direction from the clay, is that of Applecross, on +the other side of the island; and the materials of the boulder-deposits +of the north have invariably been derived in the line, westerly in its +general bearing, of the grooves and scratches of the iceberg era. But on +the southern shore of the frith, where that westerly line passed athwart +the Liasic beds of our eastern coast, organisms of the Lias are +comparatively common in the boulder-clays; and here, at Blackpots, we +find an extensive deposit of the same period formed of Liasic materials +almost exclusively. Fragments of still more modern rocks occur in the +boulder-clays of Caithness. My friend Mr. Robert Dick, of Thurso, to +whose persevering labors and interesting discoveries in the Old Red +Sandstone of his locality I have had frequent occasion to refer, has +detected in a blue boulder-clay, scooped into precipitous banks by the +river Thorsa, fragments both of chalk-flints and a characteristic +conglomerate of the Oolite. He has, besides, found it mottled from top +to bottom, a full hundred feet over the sea-level, and about two miles +inland, with comminuted fragments of existing shells. But of this more +anon. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + From Blackpots to Portsoy--Character of the Coast--Burn of + Boyne--Fever Phantoms--Graphic Granite--Maupertuis and the Runic + Inscription--Explanation of the _quo modo_ of Graphic + Granite--Portsoy Inn--Serpentine Beds--Portsoy Serpentine + unrivalled for small ornaments--Description of it--Significance of + the term _serpentine_--Elizabeth Bond and her "Letters"--From + Portsoy to Cullen--Attritive Power of the Ocean illustrated--The + Equinoctial--From Cullen to Fochabers--The Old Red again--The old + Pensioner--Fochabers--Mr. Joss, the learned Mail-guard--The Editor + a sort of Coach-guard--On the Coach to Elgin--Geology of + Banffshire--Irregular paging of the Geologic Leaves--Geologic Map + of the County like Joseph's Coat--Striking Illustration. + + +I parted from Dr. Emslie, and walked on along the shore to Portsoy,--for +three-fourths of the way over the prevailing grauwacke of the county, +and for the remaining fourth over mica schist, primary limestone, +hornblende slate, granitic and quartz veins, and the various other +kindred rocks of a primary district. The day was still gloomy and gray, +and ill suited to improve homely scenery; nor is this portion of the +Banff coast nearly so striking as that which I had travelled over the +day before. It has, however, its spots of a redeeming character,--rocky +recesses on the shore, half-beach, half-sward, rich in wild-flowers and +shells,--where one could saunter in a calm sunny morning, with one's +_bairns_ about one, very delightfully; and the interior is here and +there agreeably undulated by diluvial hillocks, that, when the sun falls +low in the evening, must chequer the landscape with many a pleasing +alternation of light and shadow. The Burn of Boyne,--which separates, +about two miles from Portsoy, a grauwacke from a mica-schist +district,--with its bare, open valley, its steep limestone banks, and +its gray, melancholy castle, long since roofless and windowless, and +surrounded by a few stunted trees, bears a deserted and solitary +shagginess about it, that struck me as wildly agreeable. It is such a +valley as one might expect to meet a ghost in, in some still, dewy +evening, as gloamin was darkening into uncertainty the outlines of the +ancient ruin, and the newly-kindled stars looked down upon the stream. + +It so happened, however, that my only story connected with either ruin +or valley was as little a ghost story as might be. I remember that, when +lying ill of fever on one occasion,--indisposed enough to see apparition +after apparition flitting across the bed-curtains, like the figures of a +magic lantern posting along the darkened wall, and yet self-possessed +enough to know that they were but mere pictures in the eye, and to watch +them as they rose,--I set myself to determine whether they were in any +degree amenable to the will, or connected by the ordinary associative +links of the metaphysician. Fixing my mind on a certain object, I strove +to call it up in the character, not of an image of the conceptive +faculty, but of a fever-vision on the retina. The image which I pictured +to myself was that of a death's head, yellow and grim, and lighted up, +as if from within, amid the darkness of a burial vault. But the death's +head obstinately refused to rise. I had no control, I found, over the +fever imagery. And the picture that rose instead, uncalled and +unexpected, was that of a coal-fire burning brightly in a grate, with a +huge tea-kettle steaming cheerily over it. + +In traversing the bare height which, rising on the western side of the +valley of the Boyne, owes its comparatively bold relief in the landscape +to the firmness of the primary rock which composes it, I picked up a +piece of graphic granite, bearing its inlaid characters of dark quartz +on a ground of cream-colored feldspar. This variety, however, though +occasionally found in rolled boulders in the neighborhood of Portsoy, is +not the graphic granite for which the locality is famous, and which +occurs in a vein in the mica schist of the eminence I was now +traversing, about a mile to the east of the town. The prevailing ground +of the granite of the vein is a flesh-colored feldspar; and the +thickly-marked quartzose characters with which it is set, greatly +smaller and paler than in the cream-colored stone, bear less the antique +Hebraic look, and would scarce deceive even the most credulous +antiquary. Antiquarians, however, _have_ been sometimes deceived by +weathered specimens of this graphic rock, in which the characters were +of considerable size, and restricted to thin veins, covering the surface +of a schistose groundwork. Maupertuis, during his famous journey to +Lapland, undertaken in 1737, to establish, from actual measurement, that +the degrees of latitude are longer towards the pole than at the equator, +and which demonstrated, of consequence, the true figure of the earth, +travelled thirty leagues out of his way, through a wild country covered +with snow, to examine an ancient monument, of which, he says, "the Fins +and Laplanders frequently spoke, as containing in its inscription the +knowledge of everything of which they were ignorant." He found it on the +side of a mountain, buried in snow; and ascertained, after kindling a +great fire around it, in order to lay it bare, that it was a stone of +irregular form, composed of various layers of unequal hardness, and that +the characters, which were rather more than an inch in length, were +written on "a layer of a species of flint," chiefly in two lines, with a +few scattered signs beneath, while the rest of the mass was composed of +a rock more soft and foliated. Graphic granite, it may be mentioned, +generally occurs, not in masses, but in veins and layers. The +inscription had been described in a previously published dissertation of +immense erudition, as Runic; but a Runic scholar of the party found he +could make nothing of it. The philosopher himself was struck by the +frequent repetition of characters of nearly the same form on the stone; +but he was ingenious enough to get over the difficulty, by remembering +that in our notation, after the Arabic manner, characters shaped exactly +alike may be very frequently repeated,--nay, as in some of the lines of +the Lapland inscription, may succeed each other, as in the sums I. II. +III. IIII. or X. XX. XXX.,--and yet very distinct and definite ideas +attach to them all. Still, however, he could not, he says, venture on +authoritatively deciding whether the inscription was a work of man or a +sport of nature. He stood between his two conclusions, like our +Edinburgh antiquarians between the two fossil Maries of Gueldres; and, +richer in eloquence than most of the philosophers his contemporaries, +was quite prepared, in his uncertainty, to give gilded mounting and a +purple pall to both. + +"Should it be no other than a sport of nature," he concludes, "the +reputation which the stone bears in this country deserves that we should +have given a description of it. If, on the other hand, what is on it be +an inscription, though it certainly does not possess the beauty of the +sculpture of Greece or Rome, it very possibly has the advantage of being +the oldest in the universe. The country in which it is found is +inhabited only by a race of men who live like beasts in the forests. We +cannot imagine that they can have ever had any memorable event to +transmit to posterity, nor, if ever they had had, that they could have +invented the means. Nor can it be conceived that this country, with its +present aspect, ever possessed more civilized inhabitants. The rigor of +the climate and the barrenness of the land have destined it for the +retreat of a few miserable wretches, who know no other. It seems, +therefore, that the inscription must have been cut at a period when the +country was situated in a different climate, and before some one of +those great revolutions which, we cannot doubt, have taken place on our +globe. The position that the earth's axis holds at present with respect +to the ecliptic, occasions Lapland to receive the sun's rays very +obliquely: it is therefore condemned to a long winter, adverse to man, +as well as to all the productions of nature. No great movement, +possibly, in the heavens was necessary, however, to cause all its +misfortunes. These regions may formerly have been those on which the sun +shone most favorably; the polar circles may have been what now the +tropics are, and the torrid zone have filled the place occupied by the +temperate." Pretty well, Monsieur, for a philosopher! The various +attempts made to unriddle the real history of graphic granite are, +however, scarce less curious than the speculations connected with what +may be termed its romance. It seems to be generally held, since the days +of old Hutton, who, in his "Theory of the Earth," discussed the subject +with his usual ingenuity, that the feldspathic basis of the stone first +crystallized, leaving interstices between the crystals, partaking of a +certain regularity of form,--a consequence of the regularity of the +crystals themselves,--and of a certain irregularity from the eccentric +dispositions which these manifest in their position and relations to +each other; and that these interstices, being afterwards filled up with +quartz, form the characters of the rock,--characters partaking enough of +the first element of _regularity_ to present their peculiar graphic +appearance, and enough of the second element of _irregularity_ to +exhibit forms of an alphabet-like variety of outline. The chemist, +however, in cross-questioning the explanation, has his puzzle to +propound regarding it. Quartz, he says, being considerably less fusible +than feldspar, would naturally consolidate first, and so would give form +to the more fusible substance, instead of deriving form from it. On what +principle, then, is it that, reversing its ordinary character, it should +have been the last of the two substances to consolidate in the graphic +granite?--a query to which there seems to be no direct reply, but which +as little affects the fact that it _was_ the substance which last +consolidated, and which took form from the other, as the decision of the +learned Strasburgers, which determined the impossibility of the long +nose in Slawkenbergius's Tale, affected the actual existence of that +remarkable feature. "It happens _to be_, notwithstanding your +objection," said the controversialists on the pro-nose side of the +question. "But it _ought not_," replied their opponents. + +The rain again returned as I was engaged in examining the graphic +granite of the Portsoy vein; the breeze from the sea heightened into a +gale, that soon fringed the coast with a broad border of foam; and I +entered the town, which looked but indifferently well in its gray +dishabille of haze and spray, tolerably wet and worn, with but the +prospect before me of being weather-bound for the rest of the day. I +found an old-fashioned inn, kept by somewhat old-fashioned people, who +had lately come from the country to "open a public;" and ensconced +myself by the fireside, in a huge many-windowed room, that must have +witnessed the county dinners of at least a century ago. Soon wearying, +however, of hearing the rain beating mad-like ratans upon the panes, and +availing myself of a comparatively "lucid interval," I sallied out, +wrapped up in my plaid, to examine the serpentine beds in the +neighborhood, which produce what is so extensively known as the Portsoy +marble. The _beds_ or _veins_ of this substance,--for it is still a moot +point whether they occur here as mere insulated masses of contemporary +origin with the primary formations which surround them, or as Plutonic +dykes injected into fissures at a later period,--are of very +considerable extent, one of them measuring about twenty-five yards +across, and another considerably more than a quarter of a mile; and, had +they but the solidity of the true marbles, they would scarce fail to be +regarded as valuable quarries of a highly ornamental stone, admirably +suited for the interior decorations of the architect. But they are +unluckily what the quarrier would term rubbly,--traversed by an infinity +of cracks and fissures; and it is rare indeed to find a continuous mass +out of which a chimney-jamb or lintel could be fashioned. The serpentine +was wrought here considerably more than a century and a half ago, and +exported to France for the magnificent Palace of Versailles; which, +though regarded by the French nation, says Voltaire, as "a favorite +without merit," Louis the Fourteenth persisted at the time in lavishly +beautifying, and looked as for abroad as Portsoy for materials with +which to adorn it. I have, however, seen it stated that the greater part +of a ship's cargo, brought afterwards to Paris on speculation, was +suffered to lie unwrought for years in the stone-dealer's yard, and was +ultimately disposed of as rubbish,--a consequence, probably, of its +unfitness, from its shaky texture, for ornamental purposes on a large +scale, though for ornaments of the smaller kind, such as boxes, vases, +and plates, it has been pronounced unrivalled. "At Zoeblitz, in Upper +Saxony," says Professor Jamieson, "several hundred people are employed +in quarrying, cutting, turning, and polishing the serpentine which +occurs in that neighborhood; and the various articles into which it is +manufactured are carried all over Germany. The serpentine of Portsoy," +he adds, "is, however, far superior to that of Zoeblitz, in color, +hardness, and transparency, and, when cut, is very beautiful." + +It is really a pretty stone; and, bad as the evening was, it was by no +means one of the worst of evenings for seeing it to advantage _in situ_, +or among the rolled pebbles on the shore. The varnish-like gloss of the +wet imparted to the undressed masses all the effect of polish, and +brought out in their proper variegations of color, every cloud, streak, +and vein. Viewed in the mass, the general hue is green; so much so, that +an insulated stack, which stands abreast of one of the beds, a +stone-cast in the sea, has greatly the appearance, at a little distance, +of an immense mass of verdigris. But red, gray, and brown are also +prevailing colors in the rock; occasional veins and blotches of white +give lightness to the darker portions; and veins of hematitic and deep +umbry tints, variety to the portions that are lighter. The greens vary +from the palest olive to the deepest black-green of the mineralogist; +the reds and browns, from blood-red to dark chocolate, and from +wood-brown to brownish-black; and, thus various in shade, they occur in +almost every possible variety of combination and form,--dotted, spotted, +clouded, veined,--so that each separate pebble on the shore seems the +representative of a rock different from the rocks represented by almost +all the others. Though not much of a mineralogist, I could have spent +considerably more time than the weather permitted me to employ this +evening, in admiring the beauties of this beach of _marbles_, or +rather,--as the real name, derived from those gorgeous, many-colored +cloudings, that impart a terrible splendor to the skins of the snake and +viper family, is not only the more correct, but also the more poetical +of the two,--this beach of _serpentines_. I had, however, to compromise +matters between the fierce wind and rain and the pretty rocks and +pebbles, by adjourning to the workshop of the Portsoy lapidary, Mr. +Clark, and examining under cover his polished specimens, of which I +purchased for a few shillings a characteristic and elegant little set. +Portsoy is peculiarly rich in minerals; and hence it reckons among its +mechanics of the ordinary class, what perhaps no other village in +Scotland of the same size and population possesses,--a skilful lapidary. +Mr. Clark's collection of the graphic granites, serpentines, and talcose +and mica schists, of the district, with their associated minerals, such +as schorl, talc, asbestos, amianthus, mountain cork, steatite, and +schiller spar, will be found eminently worthy a visit by the passing +traveller. + +I made several inquiries in the village, though not, as it proved, in +the right direction, regarding a poor old lady, several years dead, of +whom I had known a very little considerably more than a quarter of a +century before, and whose grave I would have visited, bad as the night +was, had I met any one who could have pointed it out to me. But +ungrateful Portsoy seemed to have forgotten poor Miss Bond, who, in all +her printed letters and little stories, so rarely forgot _it_. Have any +of my readers ever seen the work (in two slim volumes), "Letters of a +Village Governess," published in 1814 by Elizabeth Bond, and dedicated +to Sir Walter Scott? If not, and should they chance to see, as I lately +did, a copy on a stall (with uncut leaves, alas! and selling dog cheap), +they might possibly do worse things than buy it.[12] + +With better weather I could have spent a day or two very agreeably in +Portsoy and its neighborhood; but the rain dashed unceasingly, and made +exploration under the cover of the umbrella somewhat resemble that of a +sea-bottom under cover of the diving-bell. I could see but little at a +time, and the little imperfectly. Miss Bond, in her "Letters," refers, +in her light, pleasing style, to what in more favorable circumstances +_might_ be seen. "My troop of _light infantry_," she says, "keeps me so +well employed here during the day, that the silence and repose of the +evening is very delightful. In fine weather I walk by the sea-side, and +scramble among the rugged rocks, many of which are inaccessible to human +feet, forming a fine retreat for foxes. These animals often may be seen +from the heights, sporting with their cubs in perfect safety. This day I +went to see the works of an old _virtuoso_, who turns in marble, or +rather granite [serpentine] all kinds of chimney-piece ornaments, rings, +ear-rings, etc. Several specimens of his work, which must have cost him +a vast deal of trouble, I thought very beautiful. It was in this +neighborhood that the celebrated Ferguson spent so much of his time. The +globular stones on the gate of Durn are still to be seen, on which he +mapped out the figuring of the terrestrial and celestial globes. I was +told it was forbidden ground to approach the premises of Durn; but I +could not resist the temptation of visiting the spot where the young +philosopher had shown such early proofs of his genius; and I accordingly +paid the forfeit of an _impertinent_, for the gentleman who resides +there caught the prowler, and in genteel terms bade her go about her +business, and never return. How ungracious! She was doing no harm." + +The morning arose as gloomily as the evening had fallen; and I walked on +in the rain to Cullen, fully disposed to sympathize by the way with the +"hardy Byron,"--he of the "Narrative,"--who, from his ill-luck in +weather, went among his sailors by the name of "Foul-weather Jack." In +the sandy bay of Cullen, where the road, after inflecting inland for +some five or six miles, comes again upon the sea, I found the surf +charging home in long white lines six waves deep,-- + + "Each stepping where his comrade stood, + The instant that he fell." + +The appearance was such as to impart no inadequate idea of the vast +attritive power of ocean in wearing down the land. When pausing for a +little abreast of the fishing village, partially sheltered by an old +boat, to mark the fierce turmoil, it suddenly occurred to me,--as the +tempest weltered around reef and skerry, and roared wildly, mile after +mile, along the beach,--that the day and night were now just equal, and +that it was the customary equinoctial storm that had broken out to +accompany me on my journey. And so, calculating on a few days more of +it, instead of waiting on in the hope of a fair afternoon to examine the +outlier of Old Red which occurs in the neighborhood of Cullen, I was +content to see at a distance its mural-sided cliffs rising like broken +walls through the flat sand; and, taking the road for Fochabers, with +the intention of leaving exploration till fairer weather set in, I +resolved on posting straight on, to join my relatives on the opposite +side of the Frith. The deep-red color of the boulder-clay, as exhibited +by the way-side, in the water-courses and the water,--for every runnel +was tumbling down big and turbid with the rains,--intimated, when, after +leaving Cullen some six or seven miles behind me, I passed from a bare +moory region of quartz rock into a region of woods and fields, that I +was again upon my ancient acquaintance, the Old Red Sandstone. And the +section furnished by the Burn of Tynet showed me shortly after that the +intimation was a correct one, and how generally it may be laid down as a +rule, that at least the more impalpable portions of the boulder-clay are +derived from the rocks on which it rests. The ichthyolite beds appear in +the course of the burn. They have furnished several good +specimens,--among the others, the specimen of Coccosteus figured by Mr. +Patrick Duff in his "Sketches of the Geology of Moray;" and they are, +besides, curious, as being the first to exhibit to the traveller who +explores from Gamrie westwards, that peculiar style of coloring which +characterizes the Old Red ichthyolites of the shires of Moray and Nairn, +and which differs so strikingly from the more sombre style exhibited by +the other ichthyolites of Banffshire, with those of Cromarty, Ross, +Caithness, and Orkney. Instead of bearing, like these, one uniform hue, +as if deeply shaded with Indian ink, they are gorgeously attired, +especially when newly laid open, in white, red, purple, and blue. The +day, however, was ill-suited for fishing Pterichthyes and Osteolepi out +of the Tynet: the red water was roaring from bank to brae; here eddying +along the half-submerged furze,--there tearing down the boulder-days in +raw, red land-slips; and so, casting but one eager glance at the bed +where the fish lay, I travelled on, and entered the tall woods to the +east of Fochabers. The rain ceased for a time; and I met in the woods an +old pensioner, who had been evidently weather-bound in some +public-house, and had now taken the opportunity of the fair interval to +stagger to his dwelling. He was eminently, exuberantly happy,--there +could not be two opinions on that head,--full of all manner of bright +sunshiny thoughts and imaginations, rendered just a little tremulous and +uncertain by the _summer-heat_ exhalations of the imbibed moisture, like +distant objects in a hot noonday landscape in July seen through volumes +of rising vapor; and a sheep's head and trotters, which he carried under +his arm, was, I saw, to serve as a peace-offering to his wife at home. +True, he had been taking a dram, but he was mindful of the family for +all that. He confronted me with the air of an old acquaintance; gave the +military salute; and then, laying hold of a corner of my plaid with his +thumb and forefinger,--"I know you," he said, "I know _your kind_ well; +ye're a Highland-Donald. Od, I've seen ye in the _thick o't_. Ye're +_reugh_ fellows when ye're bluid's up!" He had taken me for a grenadier +of the 42d; and I lacked the moral courage to undeceive him. I met +nothing further on my way worthy of record, save and except a sheep's +trotter, dropped by the old pensioner in one of his zig-zaggings to the +extreme left; but having no particular use for the trotter at the time +and in the circumstances, I left it to benefit the next passer-by. I +finished my journey of eighteen miles in capital style, and was within +five minutes' walk of Fochabers when the horn of the mail-guard was +sounding up the street. And, entering the village, I found the vehicle +standing opposite the inn door, minus the horses. + +The _insides_ and _outsides_ were sitting down to dinner together as I +entered the inn; and I felt, after my long walk, that it would be rather +an agreeable matter to join with them. But in the hope of meeting my old +friend Mr. Joss, I requested to be shown, not into the passengers' room, +but into that of the coachman and guard; and with them I dined. It so +chanced, however, that Mr. Joss was not _out_ that day; and the man in +the red long coat was a stranger whom I had never seen before. I +inquired of him regarding Mr. Joss,--one of perhaps the most remarkable +mail-guards in Europe. I have at least never heard of another who, like +him, amuses his leisure on the coach-top with the "Principia" of Newton, +and understands it. And the man, drawing his inference from the interest +in Mr. Joss which my queries evinced, asked me whether I myself was not +a coach-guard. "No," I rather thoughtlessly replied, "I am not a +coach-guard." Half a minute's consideration, however, led me to doubt +whether I had given the right answer. "I am not sure," I said to +myself, on second thoughts, "but the man has cut pretty fairly on the +point;--I daresay _I am_ a sort of coach-guard. I have to mount my +twice-a-week coach in all weathers, like any mail-guard among them all; +I have to start at the appointed hour, whether the vehicle be empty or +full; I have to keep a sharp eye on the opposition coaches; I am +responsible, like any other mail-guard, for all the parcels carried, +however little I may have had to do with the making of them up; I have +always to keep my blunderbuss full charged to the muzzle,--not wishing +harm to any one, but bound in duty to let drive at all and sundry who +would make war upon the passengers, or attempt running the conveyance +off the road; and, finally, as my friend Mr. Joss takes the "Principia" +to _his_ coach-top, I take pockets full of fossils to the top of mine, +and amuse myself in fine days by working out, as I best can, the +problems which they furnish. Yes, I rather think _I am_ a coach-guard." +And so, taking my seat beside my red-coated brother, who had guessed the +true nature of my occupation so much more shrewdly than myself, I rode +on to Elgin, where I passed the night. + +It is difficult to arrange in the mind the geologic formations of +Banffshire in their character as a series of deposits. The pages of the +stony record which the county composes, like those of an +unskilfully-folded pamphlet, have been strangely mixed together, so that +page last succeeds in some places to page first, and, of the +intermediate pages, some appear at the beginning of the work, and some +at the end. It is not until we reach the western confines of the county, +some two or three miles short of the river Spey, its terminal boundary +in this direction, that we find the beds comparatively little disturbed, +and arranged chronologically in their original places. In the eastern +and southern parts of the shire, rocks widely separated by the date of +their formation have been set down side by side in patches, +occasionally of but inconsiderable extent. Now the traveller passes over +a district of grauwacke, now over a re-formation of the Lias; anon he +finds himself on a primary limestone,--gneiss, syenite, clay-slate, or +quartz-rock; and yet anon amid the fossils of some outlier of the Old +Red. The geological map of the county is, like Joseph's coat, of many +colors. I remember seeing, when a boy, more years ago than I am inclined +to specify, some workmen engaged in pulling down what had been a +house-painter's shop, a full century before. The painter had been in the +somewhat slovenly habit of cleaning his brushes by rubbing them against +a hard-cast wall, which was covered, in consequence, by a many-colored +layer of paint, a full half-inch in thickness, and as hard as a stone. +Taking a little bit home with me, I polished it by rubbing the upper +surface smooth; and, lo! a geological map. The _strata_ of variously +hued pigment, spread originally over the surface of the hard-cast wall, +were cut open, by the _denudation_ of the grindstone, into all manner of +fantastic forms, and seemed thrown into all sorts of strange +neighborhoods. The _map_ lacked merely the additional perplexity of a +few bold _faults_, with here and there a decided _dike_, in order to +render it on a small scale a sort of miniature transcript of the geology +of Banff; and I have very frequently found my thoughts reverting to it, +in connection with deposits of this broken character. On a rough +_hard-cast_ basis of granite I have laid down in imagination, as if by +way of priming, coat after coat of the primary rocks,--gneiss, and +stratified hornblend, and mica-schist, and quartz-rock, and day-slate; +and then, after breaking the coatings well up, and rubbing them well +down, and so spoiling and crumpling up the work as to make their +original order considerably a puzzle, I have begun anew to paint over +the rough surface with thick coatings of grauwacke and grauwacke-slate. +When this part of the operation was completed, I have again begun +to break up and grind down,--here letting a tract of grauwacke +sink into the broken primary,--there wearing it off the surface +altogether,--yonder elevating the original granitic _hard-cast_ till it +rose over all the coatings, Primary and Palaeozoic. And then I have begun +to paint yet a third time with thick Old Red Sandstone pigment; and yet +again to break up and wear down,--here to insert a tenon of the Old Red +deep into a mortise of the grauwacke, as at Gamrie,--there to dovetail +it into the clay-slate, as at Tomantoul,--yonder, after laying it across +the upturned quartz-rock, as at Cullen, to rub by much the greater part +of it away again, leaving but mere remainder-patches and fragments, to +mark where it had been. Lastly, if I had none of the superior Palaeozoic +or Secondary formations to deal with, I have brushed over the whole, by +way of finish, with the variously-derived coatings of the superficial +deposits; and thus, as I have said, I have often completed, in idea, +after the chance suggestion of the old painter's shop, my portable +models of the geology of disturbed districts like the Banffshire one. +The deposits of Moray are greatly less broken. Denudation has partially +worn them down; but they seem to have almost wholly escaped the previous +crumpling process. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + Yellow-hued Houses Of Elgin--Geology of the Country indicated by + the coloring of the Stone Houses--Fossils of Old Red north of the + Grampians different from those of Old Red south--Geologic + Formations at Linksfield difficult to be understood--Ganoid Scales + of the Wealden--Sudden Reaction, from complex to simple, in the + Scales of Fishes--Pore-covered Scales--Extraordinary amount of + Design exhibited in Ancient Ganoid Scales--Holoptychius Scale + illustrated by Cromwell's "fluted pot"--Patrick Duff's Geological + Collection--Elgin Museum--Fishes of the Ganges--Armature of Ancient + Fishes--Compensatory Defences--The Hermit-crab--Spines of the + Pimelodi--Ride to Campbelton--Theories of the formation of + Ardersier and Fortrose Promontories--Tradition of their + construction by the Wizard, Michael Scott--A Region of Legendary + Lore. + + +The prevailing yellow hue of the Elgin houses strikes the eye of the +geologist who has travelled northwards from the Frith of Forth. He takes +leave of a similar stone at Cupar-Fife,--a warmly-tinted yellow +sandstone, peculiarly well-suited for giving effect to architectural +ornament; and after passing along the deep-red sandstone houses of the +shires of Angus and Kincardine, and the gneiss, granite, hyperstene, and +mica-schist houses of Aberdeen and Banff shires, he again finds houses +of a deep red on crossing the Spey, and houses of a warm yellow tint on +reaching Elgin,--geologically the Cupar-Fife of the north. And the story +that the colored buildings tell him is, that he has been passing, though +by a somewhat circuitous route of a hundred and fifty miles, over an +anticlinal geological section,--_down_ in the scale till he reached +Aberdeen and had gone a little beyond it, and then _up_ again, until at +Elgin he arrives at the same superior yellow bed of Old Red Sandstone +which he had quitted at Cupar-Fife. Both beds contain the same +organisms. The Holoptychius of Dura Den, near Cupar, must have sprung +from the same original as the Holoptychius of the Hospital and +Bishop-Mill quarries near Elgin; and it seems not improbable that the +two beds, thus identical in their character and contents, may have +existed, ere the upheaval of the Grampians broke their continuity, as an +extended deposit, at the bottom of the same sea. But with this last and +newest of the formations of the Old Red Sandstone the identity of the +deposits to the south and north ceases. The strata which in the south +overlie the yellow bed of the Holoptychius represent the Carboniferous +period, the overlying strata in the north represent the Oolitic one. On +the one side the miner sinks his shaft, and finds a true coal, composed +of the Stigmaria, Calamites, Club-mosses, Ferns, and Araucarians of the +Palaeozoic era; he sinks his shaft on the other side, and finds but thin +seams of an imperfect lignite, composed of the Cycadeae, Pines, +Sphenopteri, and Clathraria of the Secondary period. The flora which +found its subsoil in the Old Red Sandstone north of the Grampians, +belonged to a scene of things so much more modern than the flora which +found its subsoil in the Old Red Sandstone of the south, that all its +productions were green and flourishing, waving beside lake, river, and +sea, at a time when the productions of the other were locked up, as now, +in sand and shale, lime and clay,--the dead mummies of ages long +departed. + +Another thoroughly wet morning! varied only from the morning of the +preceding day by the absence of wind, and the greater weight of the +persevering vertical rain, that leaped upwards in myriads of little +dancing pyramids from the surface of every pool. I walked out under +cover of my umbrella, to renew my acquaintance with the outlier of the +Weald at Linksfield, and ascertain what sort of section it now presented +under the quarrying operations of the limeburners. There was, however, +little to be seen; the bands of green and blue clays, alternating with +strata of fossiliferous limestone, and layers of a gray shade, thickly +charged with minute shells of Cypris, were sadly blurred this morning by +the trail of numerous slips from above, which had fallen during the +rains, and softened into mud as they rushed downwards athwart the face +of the quarry: and the arched band of boulder-clay which so mysteriously +underlies the deposit was, save in a few parts, wholly covered up by the +debris. The occurrence of the clay here as an inferior bed, with but the +cornstone of the Old Red beneath, and all the beds of the Weald resting +over it, forms a riddle somewhat difficult of solution; but it is +palpably not reading it aright to regard the deposit, with at least one +geologist who has written on the subject, as older than the rocks above. +It is, on the contrary, as a vast amount of various and unequivocal +evidence demonstrates, incalculably more modern; nay, we find proof of +the fact here in that very bed which has been instanced as rendering it +doubtful; the clay of which the interpolation is composed is found to +contain fragments, not only of the cornstone on which it rests, but also +of the Wealden limestone and shales which it underlies. It forms the +mere filling up of a flat-roofed cavern, or rather of two flat-roofed +caverns,--for the limestone roof dipped in the centre to the cornstone +floor,--which, previous to the times of the boulder-clay, had lain open +in what was then, as now, an old-world deposit, charged with long +extinct organisms, but which, during the iceberg period, was penetrated +and occupied by the clay, as run lime penetrates and occupies the +interstices of a dry-stone wall. It was no day for gathering fossils. I +saw a few ganoid scales, washed by the rain from the investing rubbish, +glittering on fragments of the limestone, with a few of the +characteristic shells of the deposit, chiefly Unionidae; but nothing +worth bringing away. The adhesive clay of the Weald, widely scattered +by the workmen, and wrought into mortar by the beating rains, made it a +matter of some difficulty for the struggling foot to retain the shoe, +and, sticking to my soles by pounds at a time, rendered me obnoxious to +the old English nickname of "rough-footed Scot." And so, after +traversing the heaps, somewhat like a fly in treacle, I had to yield to +the rain above and the mud beneath, and to return to do in Elgin what +cannot be done equally well in almost any other town of its size in +Scotland,--pursue my geological inquiries under cover. + +On this, as on other occasions, I was struck by the complex and very +various forms assumed by the ganoid scales of the Wealden. Throughout +the Oolitic system generally, including the Lias, there obtains a +singular complexity of type in these little glittering tiles of +enamelled bone, which contrasts strongly with the greatly more simple +style which obtained among the ganoids of the Palaeozoic period. In many +of these last, as in the Coelacanth family, including the genera +Holoptychius, Asterolepis, and Glyptolepis, in all their many species, +with at least one genus of Dipterians, the genus Dipterus, the external +outline and arrangement of scale was as simple as in any of the Cycloid +family of the present time. Like slates on a roof, each single scale +covered two, and was covered by two in turn; and the only point of +difference which existed in relation to the _laying down_ of these massy +_slates_ of _bone_, and the laying down of the very thin ones of _horn_ +which cover fish such as the carp or salmon, was, that in the massier +_slates_, the sides, or _cover_,--nicely bevelled, in order to preserve +an equability of thickness throughout,--were so adjusted, that two +scales at their edges, where they lay the one over the other, were not +thicker than one scale at its centre. Even in the other ganoids, their +contemporaries, such as the Osteolepis and Diplopterus, where the +scales were ranged more in the tile fashion, side by side, there was, +with much ingenious carpentry in the fitting, a general simplicity of +form. It would almost appear, however, that ere the ganoid order reached +the times of the Weald, the simple forms had been exhausted, and that +nature, abhorring repetition, and ever stamping upon the scales some +specific characteristic of the creature that bore them, was obliged to +have recourse to forms of a more complex and involved outline. These +latter-day scales send out nail-like spikes laterally and atop, to lay +hold upon their neighbors, and exhibit in their undersides grooves that +accommodated the nails sent out, in turn, by their neighbors, to lay +hold upon _them_. Their forms, too, are indescribably various and +fantastic. It seems curious enough, that immediately after this +extremely _artificial_ state of things, if I may so speak, the two +prevailing orders of the fish of the present day, the Cycloids and +Ctenoids, should have been ushered upon the scene, and more than the +original simplicity of scale restored. There took place a sudden +reaction, from the fantastic and the complex to the simple and the +plain. + +It is further worthy of notice, that though many of the ganoid scales of +the Secondary systems, including those of the Wealden, glitter as +brightly in burnished enamel as the more splendent scales of the Old Red +Sandstone and Coal Measures, there is a curious peculiarity exhibited in +the structure of many of the older scales of the highly enamelled class, +which, so far as I have yet seen, does not extend beyond the Palaeozoic +period. The outer layer of the scale, which lies over a middle layer of +a cellular cancellated structure, and corresponds, apparently, with that +scarf-skin which in the human subject overlies the _rete mucosum_, is +thickly set over with microscopic pores, funnel-shaped in the transverse +section, and which, examined by a good glass, in the horizontal one +resemble the puncturings of a sieve. The Megalichthys of the Coal +Measures, with its various carboniferous congeners, with the genera +Diplopterus, Dipterus, and Osteolepis of the Old Red Sandstone,--all +brilliantly enamelled fish,--are thickly pore-covered. But whatever +purpose these pores may have served, it seems in the Secondary period to +have been otherwise accomplished, if, indeed, it continued to exist. It +is a curious circumstance, that in no case do the pores seem to pass +_through_ the scale. Whatever their use, they existed merely as +communications between the cells of the middle cancellated layer and the +surface. In a fish of the Chalk,--_Macropoma Mantelli_,--the exposed +fields of the scales are covered over with apparently hollow, elongated +cylinders, as the little tubes in a shower-bath cover their round field +of tin, save that they lie in a greatly flatter angle than the tubes; +but I know not that, like the pores of the Dipterians and the +Megalichthys, they communicated between the interior of the scale and +its external surface. Their structure is at any rate palpably different, +and they bear no such resemblance to the pores of the human skin as that +which the Palaeozoic pores present. + +The amount of design exhibited in the scales of some of the more ancient +ganoids,--design obvious enough to be clearly read,--is very +extraordinary. A single scale of _Holoptychius Nobilissimus_,--fast +locked up in its red sandstone rock,--laid by, as it were, for +ever,--will be seen, if we but set ourselves to unravel its texture, to +form such an instance of nice adaptation of means to an end as might of +itself be sufficient to confound the atheist. Let me attempt placing one +of these scales before the reader, in its character as a flat counter of +bone, of a nearly circular form, an inch and a half in diameter, and an +eighth-part of an inch in thickness; and then ask him to bethink +himself of the various means by which he would impart to it the greatest +possible degree of strength. The human skull consists of two tables of +solid bone, an inner and an outer, with a spongy cellular substance +interposed between them, termed the _diploe_; and such is the effect of +this arrangement, that the blow which would fracture a continuous wall +of bone has its force broken by the spongy intermediate layer, and +merely injures the outer table, leaving not unfrequently the inner one, +which more especially protects the brain, wholly unharmed. Now, such +also was the arrangement in the scale of the _Holoptychius +Nobilissimus_. It consisted of its two well-marked tables of solid bone, +corresponding in their dermal character, the outer to the cuticle, the +inner to the true skin, and the intermediate cellular layer to the _rete +mucosum_; but bearing an unmistakable analogy also, as a mechanical +contrivance, to the two plates and the _diploe_ of the human skull. To +the strengthening principle of the two tables, however, there were two +other principles added. Cromwell, when commissioning for a new helmet, +his old one being, as he expresses it, "ill set," ordered his friend to +send him a "_fluted pot_," _i.e._, a helmet ridged and furrowed on the +surface, and suited to break, by its protuberant lines, the force of a +blow, so that the vibrations of the stroke would reach the body of the +metal deadened and flat. Now, the outer table of the scale of the +Holoptychius was a "fluted pot." The alternate ridges and furrows which +ornamented its surface served a purpose exactly similar with that of the +flutes and fillets of Cromwell's helmet. The inner table was +strengthened on a different but not less effective principle. The human +stomach consists of three coats; and two of these, the outermost or +peritoneal coat, and the middle or muscular coat, are so arranged, that +the fibres of the one cross at nearly right angles those of the other. +The violence which would tear the compact sides of this important organ +along the fibres of the outer coat, would be checked by the transverse +arrangement of the fibres of the middle coat, and _vice versa_. We find +the cotton manufacturer weaving some of his stronger fabrics on a +similar plan;--they also are made to consist of two _coats_; and what is +technically termed the _tear_ of the upper is so disposed that it lies +at an angle of forty-five degrees with the _tear_ of the coat which lies +underneath. Now, the inner table of the scale of the Holoptychius was +composed, on this principle, of various layers or coats, arranged the +one over the other, so that the fibres of each lay at right angles +with the fibres of the others in immediate contact with it. In +the inner table of one scale I reckon nine of these alternating, +variously-disposed layers; so that any application of violence, which, +in the language of the lath-splitter, would _run lengthwise along the +grain_ of four of them, would be checked by the _cross grain_ in five. +In other words, the line of the _tear_ in five of the layers was ranged +at right angles with the line of the _tear_ in four. There were thus in +a single scale, in order to secure the greatest possible amount of +strength,--and who can say what other purposes may have been secured +besides?--three distinct principles embodied,--the principle of the two +tables and _diploe_ of the human skull,--the principle of the variously +arranged coats of the human stomach,--and the principle of Oliver +Cromwell's "fluted pot." There have been elaborate treatises written on +those ornate flooring-tiles of the classical and middle ages, that are +occasionally dug up by the antiquary amid monastic ruins, or on the +sites of old Roman stations. But did any of them ever tell a story half +so instructive or so strange as that told by the incalculably more +ancient ganoid _tiles_ of the Palaeozoic and Secondary periods? + +I called, on my way back from Linksfield, upon my old friend Mr. Patrick +Duff, and was introduced once more to his exquisite collection, with its +unique ichthyolites of at least two genera of fishes of the Old +Red,--the _Stagonolepis_ and _Placothorax_ of Agassiz,--which up to the +present time are to be seen nowhere else; and various other fine +specimens of rare species, which, having sat for their portraits, have +their forms preserved in the great work of the naturalist of Neufchatel. +He showed me, with some triumph, one of his later acquisitions,--a fine +specimen of Holoptychius from the upper yellow sandstone of Bishop-Mill, +which exhibits the dorsal ridge covered with a line of large overlapping +scales, not at all unlike those overlapping plates which cover the tail +of the lobster; for which, by the way, they were mistaken by the workman +who first laid the fossil open. I examined, too, with some interest, +fragments of a gigantic species of Pterichthys, belonging to an inferior +division of the same Upper Old Red formation as the yellow stone, +designated by Agassiz _Pterichthys major_, which must have attained to +at least thrice the size, linearly, of even its bulkier congeners of the +Lower formation of the Coccosteus. After examining many a drawer, +stored, from the deposits of the neighborhood, with characteristic +fossils of the Lias, the Weald, and the Oolite, and of the Upper and +Lower Old Red, we set out together to expatiate amid the treasures of +the Town Museum. + +Among other recent additions to the Museum, there is an interesting set +of the fishes of the Ganges, the donation of a gentleman long resident +in India, to which Mr. Duff called my attention, as illustrative, in +some of the specimens, of the more characteristic ichthyolites of the +Old Red Sandstone. One numerous family, the Pimelodi, abundantly +represented in the Gangetic region, in not only the rivers, but also the +ponds, tanks, and estuaries of the district, is certainly worthy the +careful study of the geologist. It approaches nearer, in some of its +more strongly-marked genera, to the Coccosteus of the Lower Old Red, +than any other tribe of existing fishes which I have yet seen. The body +of the Pimelodus, from the anterior dorsal downwards, is as naked as +that of the eel; whereas the head, and in several of the species the +back, is armed with strong plates of naked bone, curiously fretted, as +in many of the ichthyolites of the Lower, and more especially of the +Upper Old Red Sandstone, into ridges of confluent tubercles, that +radiate from the centre to the edges of the plates. The dorsal plate, +too, when detached, as in many of the species, from the plates of the +head, bears upon its inner side a strong central ridge, that deepens as +it descends, till it abruptly terminates a little short of the +termination of the plate, exactly as in the dorsal plate of Coccosteus, +which sunk its central ridge deep into the back of the animal. The point +of resemblance to be mainly noticed, however, is the contrast furnished +by the powerful armature of the head and back, with the unprotected +nakedness of the posterior portions of the creature;--a point specially +noticeable in the Coccosteus, and apparent also, though in a lesser +degree, in some of the other genera of the Old Red, such as the +Pterichthyes and Asterolepides. From the snout of the Coccosteus down to +the posterior termination of the dorsal plate, the creature was cased in +strong armor, the plates of which remain as freshly preserved in the +ancient rocks of the country as those of the Pimelodi of the Ganges on +the shelves of the Elgin Museum; but from the pointed termination of the +plate immediately over the dorsal fin, to the tail, comprising more +than one half the entire length of the animal, all seems to have been +exposed, without the protection of even a scale, and there survives in +the better specimens only the internal skeleton of the fish and the +ray-bones of the fins. It was armed, like a French dragoon, with a +strong helmet and a short cuirass; and so we find its remains in the +state in which those of some of the soldiers of Napoleon's old guard, +that had been committed unstripped to the earth, may be dug up in the +future on the fatal field of Borodino, or along the banks of the Dwina +or the Wap. The cuirass lies still attached to the helmet, but we find +only the naked skeleton attached to the cuirass. The Pterichthys to its +strong helmet and cuirass added a posterior armature of comparatively +feeble scales, as if, while its upper parts were shielded with plate +armor, a lighter covering of ring or scale armor sufficed for the less +vital parts beneath. In the Asterolepis the arrangement was somewhat +similar, save that the plated cuirass was wanting: it was a strongly +helmed warrior in slight scale armor; for the disproportion between the +strength of the plated head-piece and that of the scaly coat was still +greater than in the Pterichthys. The occipital star-covered plates are, +in some of the larger specimens, fully three-quarters of an inch in +thickness, whereas the thickness of the delicately-fretted scales rarely +exceeds a line. + +Why this disproportion between the strength of the armature in different +parts of the same fish should have obtained, as in Pterichthys and +Asterolepis, or why, while one portion of the animal was strongly armed, +another portion should have been left, as in Coccosteus, wholly exposed, +cannot of course be determined by the mere geologist. His rocks present +him with but the fact of the disproportion, without accounting for it. +But the natural history of existing fish, in which, as in the Pimelodi, +there may be detected a similar peculiarity of armature, may perhaps +throw some light on the mystery. In Hamilton's "Fishes of the Ganges" I +find but little reference made to the instincts and habits of the +animals described: their deep-river haunts lie, in many cases, beyond +the reach of observation; and of the observations actually made, the +descriptive naturalist, intent often on mere peculiarities of structure, +is not unfrequently too careless. Hamilton describes the habitats of the +various Indian species of Pimelodi, whether brackish estuaries, ponds, +or rivers, but not their characteristic instincts. Of the Silurus, +however, a genus of the same great family, I read elsewhere that some of +the species, such as the _Silurus glanis_, being unwieldy in their +motions, do not pursue their prey, which consists of small fishes, but +lie concealed among the mud, and seize on the chance stragglers that +come their way. And of the _Pimelodus gulio_, a little, strongly-helmed +fish, with a naked body, I was informed by Mr. Duff, on the authority of +the gentleman who had presented the specimens to the Museum, that it +burrowed in the holes of muddy banks, from which it shot out its armed +head, and arrested, as they passed, the minute animals on which it +preyed. The animal world is full of such compensatory defences: there is +a half-suit of armor given to shield half the body, and a wise instinct +to protect the rest. The _Pholas crispata_ cannot shut its valves so as +to protect its anterior parts, without raising them from off those parts +which lie behind: like the Irishman in the haunted house, who attempted +lengthening his blanket by cutting strips from the top and sewing them +on to the bottom, it loses at the one end what it gains at the other; +but, hemmed round by the solid walls of the recess which it is its +nature to hollow out for itself in shale or stone, the anterior parts, +though uncovered by the shell, are not exposed. By closing its valves +anteriorly, it shuts the door of its little house, made like that of the +coney-folk of Scripture, in the rock; and then, of the entire cell in +which it dwells so secure, what is not shut door is impregnable wall. +The remark of Paley, that the "human animal is the only one which is +naked, and the only one which can clothe itself," is by no means quite +correct. One half the hermit crab is as naked as the "human animal," and +even less fitted for exposure; for it consists of a thin-skinned, soft, +unmuscular bag, filled with delicate viscera; but not even the human +animal is more skilful in clothing himself in the spoils of other +animals than the hermit crab in wrapping up its naked bag in the strong +shell of some dead fusus or buccinum, which it carries about with it in +all its peregrinations, as at once clothes, armor, and house. Nature +arms its front, and it is itself wise enough to arm its rear. Now, it +seems not improbable that the half-armed Coccosteus, a heavy fish, +indifferently furnished with fins, may have burrowed, like the recent +_Silurus glanis_ or _Pimelodus gulio_, in a thick mud,--of the existence +of which in vast quantity, during the times of the Old Red Sandstone, +the dark Caithness flagstones, the fetid breccia of Strathpeffer, and +the gray stratified clays of Cromarty, Moray, and Banff, unequivocally +testify; and that it may have thus not only succeeded in capturing many +of its light-winged contemporaries, which it would have vainly pursued +in open sea, but may have been enabled also to present to its enemies, +when assailed in turn, only its armed portions, and to protect its +unarmed parts in its burrow. It is further worthy of notice, that many +of the Pimelodi are furnished with spines, not, like those +ichthyodorulites which occur so frequently in the older Secondary and +Palaeozoic divisions, unfinished in appearance at their lower extremity, +as if, like the spines of the ancient Acanthodi, or those of the recent +dog-fish (_Spinax acanthias_), they had been simply embedded in the +flesh, but bearing, like the wings of the Pterichthys, an articulated +aspect. Those of the _Pimelodus rita_ and _Pimelodus gagata_ are of +singular beauty; and when the creatures have no further use for them, +and the mud of the Ganges has been consolidated into shale or baked into +flagstone around them, they will make very exquisite fossils. A correct +drawing of the plates and spines of some of the members of the Pimelodi +family, with a portion of the internal skeletons, arranged in their +proper places, but divested of those more destructible parts to which +they are attached, would serve admirably to show what strange forms fish +not greatly removed from the ordinary type may assume in the fossil +state, and might throw some light on the extraordinary appearance +assumed, as ichthyolites, by the old family of the Cephalaspians. + +The geological department of the Elgin Museum is not yet very complete. +The private collections of the locality, by forestalling, greatly +restrict the supply from the rich deposits in the neighborhood, and have +an unquestioned right to do so. The Museum contains, however, several +interesting organisms. I saw, among the others, a specimen of +Diplopterus, that showed the form and position of the fins of this +rather rare ichthyolite much better than any of the Morayshire specimens +portrayed by Agassiz in his great work; and beside it, one of the two +specimens of _Pterichthys oblongus_ which he figures, and on which he +establishes the species. The other individual,--a Cromarty +specimen,--graces my little collection. The gloomy day passed pleasantly +in deciphering, with so accomplished a geologist as Mr. Duff, these +curious hieroglyphics of the old world, that tell such wonderful +stories, and in comparing _viva voce_, as we were wont to do long years +before in lengthy epistles, our respective notions regarding the true +key for laying open their more occult meanings. And, after sharing with +him in his family dinner, I again took my seat on the mail, as a chill, +raw evening was falling, and rode on, some six or eight and twenty +miles, to Campbelton. The rain pattered drearily through the night on my +bed-room window; and as frequent exposure to the wet had begun to tell +on a constitution not altogether so strong as it had once been, I +awakened oftener than was quite comfortable, to hear it. The morning, +however, was dry, though gray and sunless; and, taking an early +breakfast at the inn, I traversed the flat gravelly points of Ardersier +and Fortrose, that, projecting like moles far into the Frith, narrow the +intervening ferry to considerably less than one-third the width which it +would present were they away. The origin of these long detrital +promontories, which form, when viewed from the heights on either side, +so peculiar a feature in the landscape, and which, were they directly +opposite, instead of being set down a mile awry, would shut up the +opening altogether, has not yet been satisfactorily accounted for. One +special theory assigns their formation to the agency of the descending +tide, striking in zig-gig style, in consequence of some peculiarity of +the coast-line or of the bottom, from side to side of the Frith, and +depositing a long trail of sand and gravel, at nearly right angles with +the beach, first on the one shore and then on the other. But why the +tide, which runs in various zig-zag crossings in the course of the +Frith, should have the effect here, and nowhere else, of raising two +vast mounds, each a full mile and a quarter in length, with an average +breadth of from two to five furlongs, is by no means very apparent. +Certainly the present tides of the Frith could not have formed them, nor +could they have been elevated to their present average height of ten or +twelve feet over the flood-line in a sea standing at the existing level. +If they in reality originated in this cause, it must have been ere the +latter upheavals of the land or recessions of the sea, when the great +Caledonian Valley existed as a narrow ocean sound, swept by powerful +currents. Upon another and entirely different hypothesis, these flat +promontories have been regarded as the remains, levelled by the waves, +and gapped direct in the middle by the tide, of a vast transverse morain +of the great valley, belonging to the same glacial age as the lateral +morains some ten or fifteen miles higher up, that extend from the +immediate neighborhood of Inverness to the mansion-house of Dochfour. +But this hypothesis, like the other, is not without its difficulties. +Why, for instance, should the promontories be a mile awry? There is, +however, yet another mode of accounting for their formation, which I am +not in the least disposed to criticise. + +They were constructed, says tradition, through the agency of the +arch-wizard Michael Scott. Michael had called up the hosts of Faery to +erect the cathedral of Elgin and the chanonry kirk of Fortrose, which +they completed from foundation to ridge, each in a single +night,--committing, in their hurry, merely the slight mistake of +locating the building intended for Elgin in Fortrose, and that intended +for Fortrose in Elgin; but, their work over and done, and when the +magician had no further use for them, they absolutely refused to be +_laid_; and, like a _posse_ of Irish laborers thrown out of a job, came +thronging round him, clamoring for more employment. Fearing lest he +should be torn in pieces,--a catastrophe which has not unfrequently +happened in such circumstances in the olden time, and of which those +recent philanthropists who engage themselves in finding work for the +unemployed may have perhaps entertained some little dread in our own +days,--he got rid of them for the time by setting them off in a body to +run a mound across the Moray Frith from Fortrose to Ardersier. Toiling +hard in the evening of a moonlight night, they had proceeded greatly +more than two-thirds towards the completion of the undertaking, when a +luckless Highlander passing by bade God-speed the work, and, by thus +breaking the charm, arrested at once and forever the construction of the +mound, and saved the navigation of Inverness. + +I stood for a few seconds at the Burn of Rosemarkie undecided whether I +should take the Scarfs-Craig road,--a break-neck path which runs +eastwards along the cliffs, and which, though the rougher, is the more +direct Cromarty line of the two,--or the considerably better though +longer line of the White Bog, which strikes upwards along the burn in a +westerly direction, and joins the Cromarty and Inverness highway on the +moor of the Maolbuie. I had got into a part of the country where every +little locality, and every more striking feature in the landscape, has +its associated tradition; and the pause of a few moments at the two +roads recalled to my memory the details of a ghost-story, long regarded +in the district in which it was best known as one of the most authentic +of its class, but which seems by no means inexplicable on natural +principles.[13] + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + Rosemarkie and its Scaurs--Kaes' Craig--A Jackdaw + Settlement--"Rosemarkie Kaes" and "Cromarty Cooties"--"The Danes," + a Group of Excavations--At Home in Cromarty--The Boulder-clay of + Cromarty "begins to tell its story"--One of its marked Scenic + Peculiarities--Hints to Landscape Painters--"Samuel's Well"--A + Chain of Bogs geologically accounted for--Another Scenic + Peculiarity--"_Ha-has_ of Nature's digging"--The Author's earliest + Field of Hard Labor--Picturesque Cliff of Boulder-clay--Scratchings + on the Sandstone--Invariable Characteristic of true + Boulder-clay--Scratchings on Pebbles in the line of the longer + axis--Illustration from the Boulder-clay of Banff. + + +Rosemarkie, with its long narrow valley and its red abrupt _scaurs_,[14] +is chiefly interesting to the geologist for its vast beds of the +boulder-clay. I am acquainted with no other locality in the kingdom +where this deposit is hollowed into ravines so profound, or presents +precipices so imposing and lofty. The clay lies thickly over most part +of the Black Isle and the peninsula of Easter Ross,--both soft sandstone +districts,--bearing everywhere an obvious relation, as a deposit, to +both the form and the conditions of exposure of the existing land,--just +as the accumulated snow of a long-lying snow-storm, exposed to the +drifting wind, bears relation to the heights and hollows of the tracts +which it covers. On the higher eminences the clay forms a comparatively +thin stratum, and in not a few instances it has been wholly worn away; +while on the lower grounds, immediately over the old coast line, and in +the sides of hollow valleys,--exactly such places as we might expect to +see the snow occupying most deeply after a night of drift,--we find it +accumulated in vast beds of from eighty to an hundred feet in thickness. +One of these occurs in the opening of the narrow valley along which my +course this morning lay, and is known far and wide,--for it forms a +marked feature in the landscape, and harbors in its recesses a countless +multitude of jackdaws,--as the "Kaes' Craig of Rosemarkie." It presents +the appearance of a hill that had been cut sheer through the middle from +top to base, and exhibits in its abrupt front a broad red perpendicular +section of at least a hundred feet in height, barred transversely by +thin layers of sand, and scored vertically by the slow action of the +rains. Originally it must have stretched its vanished limb across the +opening like some huge snow-wreath accumulated athwart a frozen rivulet; +but the incessant sweep of the stream that runs through the valley has +long since amputated and carried it away; and so only half the hill now +remains. The Kaes' Craig resembles in form a lofty chalk cliff, square, +massy, abrupt, with no sloping fillet of vegetation bound across its +brow, but precipitous direct from the hill-top. The little ancient +village of Rosemarkie stretches away from its base on the opposite side +of the stream; and on its summit and along its sides, groups of +chattering jackdaws, each one of them as reflective and philosophic as +the individual immortalized by Cowper, look down high over the chimneys +into the streets. The clay presents here, more than in almost any other +locality with which I am acquainted, the character of a stratified +deposit; and the numerous bands of sand by which the cliff is +horizontally streaked from top to bottom we find hollowed, as we +approach, into a multitude of circular openings, like shot-holes in an +old tower, which form breeding-places for the daw and the sand-martin. +The biped inhabitants of the cliff are greatly more numerous than the +biped inhabitants of the quiet little hamlet below; and on Fortrose +fair-days, when, in virtue of an old feud, the Rosemarkie boys were wont +to engage in formidable bickers with the boys of Cromarty, I remember, +as one of the invading belligerents, that, in bandying names with them +in the fray, we delighted to bestow upon them, as their hereditary +sobriquet, given, of course, in allusion to their feathered neighbors, +the designation of the "_Rosemarkie kaes_." Cromarty, however, is +two-thirds surrounded by the waters of a frith abounding in sea-fowl; +and the little fellows of Rosemarkie, indignant at being classed with +their _kaes_, used to designate us with hearty emphasis, in turn, as the +"_Cromarty cooties_," _i.e._, coots. + +A little higher up the valley, on the western side, there occurs in the +clay what may be termed a _group_ of excavations, composing a piece of +scenery ruinously broken and dreary, and that bears a specific character +of its own which scarce any other deposit could have exhibited. The +excavations are of considerable depth and extent,--hollows out of which +the materials of pyramids might have been taken. The precipitous sides +are fretted by jutting ridges and receding inflections, that present in +abundance their diversified alternations of light and shadow. The steep +descents form cycloid curves, that flatten at their bases, and over +which the ferruginous stratum of mould atop projects like a cornice. +Between neighboring excavations there stand up dividing walls, tall and +thin as those of our city buildings, and in some cases broken at their +upper edges into rows of sharp pinnacles or inaccessible turf-coped +turrets; while at the bottom of the hollows, washed by the runnels +which, in the slow lapse of years, have been the architects of the +whole, we find cairn-like accumulations of water-rolled stones,--the +disengaged pebbles and boulders of the deposit. The boulders and pebbles +project also from the steep sides, at all heights and of all sizes, +like the primary masses inclosed in our ancient conglomerates, when +exhibited in wave-worn precipices,--forcing upon the mind the conclusion +that the boulder-clay is itself but an unconsolidated conglomerate of +the later periods, which occupies nearly the same relative position to +the existing vegetable mould, with all its recent productions, that the +great conglomerate of the Old Red Sandstone occupies in relation to the +lower ichthyolite beds of that system, with their numerous extinct +organisms. But its buried stones are fretted with hieroglyphic +inscriptions, in the form of strange scratchings and polishings, +grooves, ridges, and furrows,--always associated with the +boulder-clays,--which those of the more ancient conglomerates want, and +which, though difficult to read, seem at length to be yielding up the +story which they record. Of this, however, more anon. Viewed by +moonlight, when the pale red of the clay where the beam falls direct is +relieved by the intense shadows, these excavations of the valley of +Rosemarkie form scenes of strange and ghostly wildness: the projecting, +buttress-like angles,--the broken walls,--the curved inflections,--the +pointed pinnacles,--the turrets, with their masses of projecting +coping,--the utter lack of vegetation, save where the heath and the +furze rustle far above,--all combine to form assemblages of dreary +ruins, amid which, in the solitude of night, one almost expects to see +spirits walk. These excavations have been designated, from time +immemorial, by the neighboring town's-people, as "the Danes;" but +whether the name be, as is most probable, merely a corruption of an +appropriate enough Saxon word, "the dens," or derived, as a vague +tradition is said to testify, from the ages of Danish invasion, it is +not quite the part of the geologist to determine. It may be worth +mentioning, however, from its bearing on the point, that there are two +excavations in the boulder-clay near Cromarty, one of which has been +long known by the name of "the Morial's Den," while the other, greatly +smaller in size, rejoices in the double diminutive of "the Little +Dennie." For an hour or so the Danes proved agreeable though somewhat +silent companions; and then, climbing the opposite side of the valley, I +gained the high road, and, walking on to Cromarty, found myself once +more among "the old familiar faces." + +In a few days the storm blew by; and as the prolonged rains had cleared +out the deep ravines of the district, and given to the boulder-clay in +which they are scooped a freshness in its section analogous to fresh +fracture in rocks of harder consistency, I availed myself of the +facilities afforded me in consequence, for exploring it once more. It +has long constituted one of the hardest of the many riddles with which +our Scottish deposits exercise the patience and ingenuity of the +geologist. I remember a time when, after passing a day under its barren +_scaurs_, or hid in its precipitous ravines, I used to feel in the +evening as if I had been travelling under the cloud of night, and had +seen nothing. It was a morose and taciturn companion, and had no +speculation in it. I might stand in front of its curved precipices, red, +yellow or gray, according to the prevailing average color of the rocks +on which it rests, and mark their water-rolled boulders, of all +qualities and sizes, sticking out in bold relief from the surface, like +the rock-like protuberances that roughen the rustic basements of the +architect, from the line of the wall; but I had no _open sesame_ to form +vistas through them into the recesses of the past. I saw merely the +stiff pastry matrix of which they are composed, and the inclosed +pebbles. But the boulder-clay has of late become more sociable; and, +though with much hesitancy and irresolution, like old Mr. Spectator on +the first formal opening of his mouth,--a consequence, doubtless, in +both cases of previous habits of silence long indulged,--it begins to +tell its story. And a most curious story it is. + +The morning was clear, but just a little chill; and a soft covering of +snow, that had fallen during the storm on the flat summit of Ben-Wevis, +and showed its extreme tenuity by the paleness of its tint of watery +blue, was still distinctly visible at the distance of full twenty miles. +The sun, low in the sky,--for the hour was early,--cast its slant rays +athwart the prospect, giving to each nearer bank and hillock, and to the +more distant protuberances on the mountain-sides, those well-defined +accompaniments of shadow that serve by throwing the minor features of a +landscape upon the eye in bold relief, to impart to it an air of higher +finish and more careful filling up than it ever bears under a more +vertical light. I took the road which, leading westward from the town +towards Invergordon Ferry, skirts the Frith on the one hand, and runs +immediately under the noble escarpment of green bank formed by the old +coast line on the other. Fully two-thirds of the entire height of the +rampart here, which rises in all about a hundred feet over the +sea-level, is formed of the boulder-clay; and I am acquainted with no +locality in which the deposit presents more strongly, for at least the +first half mile, one of its marked scenic peculiarities. It is furrowed +vertically on the slope, as if by enormous flutings in the more antique +Doric style; and the ridges by which these are separated,--each from a +hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in length, and from five-and-twenty +to thirty feet in average height,--resemble those burial mounds with +which the sexton frets the churchyard turf; with this difference, +however, that they seem the burial mounds of giants, tall and bulky as +those that of old warred against the gods. They are striking enough to +have caught the eye of the children of the place, and are known among +them as the Giants' Graves. I could fain have taken their portrait in a +calotype this morning, as they lay against the green bank,--their feet +to the shore, and their heads on the top of the escarpment,--like +patients on a reclining bed, and strongly marked, each by its broad bar +of yellow light and of dark shadow, like the ebon and ivory buttresses +of the poet. This little vignette, I would have said to the landscape +painter, represents the boulder-clay, after its precipitous banks--worn +down, by the frosts and rains of centuries, into parallel runnels, that +gradually widened into these hollow grooves--had sunk into the angle of +inclination at which the disintegrating agents ceased to operate, and +the green sward covered all up. You must be studying these peculiarities +of aspect more than ever you studied them before. There is a time coming +when the connoisseur will as rigidly demand the specific character of +the various geologic rocks and deposits in your hills, _scaurs_, and +precipices, as he now demands specific character in your shrubs and +trees. + +It is worthy the notice of the young geologist, who has just set himself +to study the various effects produced on the surface of a country by the +deposits which lie under it, that for about a quarter of a mile or so, +the base of the escarpment here is bordered by a line of bogs, that bear +in the driest weather their mantling of green. They are fed with a +perennial supply of water, by a range of deep-seated springs, that come +bursting out from under the boulder-clay; and one of their number, which +bears I know not why, the name of Samuel's Well, and yields its equable +flow at an equable temperature, summer and winter, into a stone trough +by the way-side, is not a little prized by the town's-people, and the +seamen that cast anchor in the opposite roadstead, for the lightness and +purity of its water. What is specially worthy of notice in the case is, +the very definite beginning and ending of the chain of bogs. All is dry +at the base of the escarpment, up to the point at which they commence; +and then all is equally dry at the point at which they terminate. And of +exactly the same extent,--beginning where the bogs begin, and ending +where they end,--we may trace an ancient stratum of pure sand,--of +considerable thickness, intercalated between the base of the clay and +the superior surface of the Old Red Sandstone. It is through this +permeable sand that the profoundly seated springs find their way to the +surface,--for the clay is impermeable; and where it comes in contact +with the rock on either side of the arenaceous stratum, the bogs cease. +The chain of green bogs is a consequence of the stratum of permeable +sand. I have in vain sought this ancient layer of sand,--decidedly of +the same era with the argillaceous bed which overlies it,--for aught +organic. A single shell, so unequivocally of the period of the +boulder-clay as to occur at the base of the deposit, would be worth, I +have said, whole drawerfuls of fossils furnished by the better-known +deposits. But I have since seen in abundance shells of the boulder-clay. + +There is another scenic peculiarity of the clay, which the neighborhood +of Cromarty finely illustrates, and of which my walk this morning +furnished numerous striking instances. The Giants' Graves--to borrow +from the children of the place--occur on the steep slopes of the old +coast line, or in the sides of ravines, where the clay, as I have said, +had once presented a precipitous front, but had been gradually moulded, +under the attritive influences of the elements, into series of +alternating ridges and furrows, which, when they had flattened into the +proper angle, the green sward covered up from further waste. But the +deep dells and narrow ravines in which many ranges of these graves occur +are themselves peculiarities of the deposit. Wherever the boulder-clay +lies thick and continuous, as in the parish of Cromarty, on a sloping +table-land, every minute streamlet cuts its way to the solid rock at the +bottom, and runs through a deep dell, either softened into beauty by the +disintegrating process, or with all its precipices standing up raw and +abrupt over the stream. Four of these ravines, known as the "Old Chapel +Burn," the "Ladies' Walk," the "Morial's Den," and the "Red Burn," each +of them cutting the escarpment of the ancient coast line from top to +base, and winding far into the interior, occur in little more than a +mile's space; and they lie still more thickly farther to the west. These +dells of the boulder clay, in their lower windings,--for they become +shallower and tamer as they ascend, till they terminate in the uplands +in mere _drains_, such as a ditcher might excavate at the rate of a +shilling or two per yard,--are eminently picturesque. On those gentler +slopes where the vegetable mould has had time and space to accumulate, +we find not a few of the finest and tallest trees of the district. There +is a bosky luxuriance in their more sheltered hollows, well known to the +schoolboy what time the fern begins to pale its fronds, for their store +of hips, sloes, and brambles; and red over the foliage we may see, ever +and anon as we wend upwards, the abrupt frontage of some precipitous +_scaur_, suited to remind the geologist, from its square form and flat +breadth of surface, of the cliffs of the chalk. When viewed from the +sea, at the distance of a few miles, these ravines seem to divide the +sloping tracts in which they occur into large irregular fields, laid out +considerably more in accordance with the principles of the landscape +gardener than the stiffly squared rectilinear fields of the +agriculturist. They are _ha-has_ of Nature's digging; and their bottom +and sides in this part of the country we still find occupied in a few +cases--though in many more they have been ravaged by the wasteful +axe--by noble forest-_hedges_, tall enough to overtop, in at least their +middle reaches, the tracts of table-land which they divide. + +I passed, a little farther on, the quarry of Old Red Sandstone, with a +huge bank of boulder-clay resting over it, in which I first experienced +the evils of hard labor, and first set myself to lessen their weight by +becoming an observer of geological phenomena. It had been deserted +apparently for many years; and the debris of the clay partially covered +up, in a sloping talus, the frontage of rock beneath. Old Red Sandstone +and boulder-clay, a broad bar of each!--such was the compound problem +which the excavation propounded to me when I first plied the tool in +it,--a problem equally dark at the time in both its parts. I have since +got on a very little way with the Old Red portion of the task; but alas +for the boulder-clay portion of it! A bar of impenetrable shadow has +rested long and obstinately over the newer deposit; and I scarce know +whether the light which is at length beginning to play on its pebbly +front be that of the sun or of a delusive meteor. But courage, patient +hearts! the boulder-clay will one day yield up _its_ secret too. Still +further on by a few hundred yards, I could have again found use for the +calotype, in transferring to paper the likeness of a protuberant +picturesque cliff, which, like the Giants' Graves, could have belonged, +of all our Scotch deposits, to only the boulder-clay. It stands out, on +the steep acclivity of a furze-covered bank, abrupt as a precipice of +solid rock, and yet seamed by the rain into numerous divergent channels, +with pyramidal peaks between; and, combining the perpendicularity of a +true cliff with the water-scooped furrows of a yielding clay, it +presents a peculiarity of aspect which strikes, by its grotesqueness, +eyes little accustomed to detect the picturesque in landscape. I +remember standing to gaze upon it when a mere child; and the fisher +children of the neighboring town still tell that "_it has been +prophesied_" it will one day fall, "and kill a man and a horse on the +road below,"--a legend which shows it must have attracted _their_ notice +too. + +I selected as the special scene of exploration this morning, a deep +ravine of the boulder-clay, which had been recently deepened still more +by the waters of a mill-pond, that had burst during a thunder-shower, +and, after scooping out for themselves a bed in the clay some twelve or +fifteen feet deep, where there had been formerly merely a shallow drain, +had then tumbled into the ravine, and bared it to the rock. The +sandstones of the district, soft and not very durable, show the +scratched and polished surfaces but indifferently well, and, when +exposed to the weather, soon lose them; but in the bottom of the runnel +by which the ravine is swept I found them exceedingly well marked,--the +polish as decided as the soft red stone could receive, and the lines of +scratching running in their general bearing due east and west, at nearly +right angles with the course of the stream. Wherever the rock had been +laid bare during the last few months, _there_ were the markings; +wherever it had been laid bare for a few twelvemonths, they were gone. I +next marked a circumstance which has now for several years been +attracting my attention, and which I have found an invariable +characteristic of the true boulder-clay. Not only do the rocks on which +the deposit rests bear the scratched and polished surfaces, but in every +instance the fragments of stone which it incloses bear the scratchings +also, if from their character capable of receiving and retaining such +markings, and neither of too coarse a grain nor of too hard a quality. +If of limestone, or of a coherent shale, or of a close, finely-grained +sandstone, or of a yielding trap, they are scratched and +polished,--invariably on one, most commonly on both their sides; and it +is a noticeable circumstance, that the lines of the scratchings occur, +in at least nine cases out of every ten, in the lines of their longer +axes. When decidedly oblong or spindle-shaped, the scratchings run +lengthwise, preserving in most cases, on the under and upper sides, when +both surfaces are scratched, a parallelism singularly exact; whereas, +when of a broader form, so that the length and breadth nearly +approximate,--though the lines generally find out the longer axis, and +run in that direction,--they are less exact in their parallelism, and +are occasionally traversed by cross furrows. Of such certain occurrence +is this longitudinal lining on the softer and finer-grained pebbles of +the boulder-clay, that I have come to regard it as that special +characteristic of the deposit on which I can most surely rely for +purposes of identification. I am never quite certain of the boulder-clay +when I do not detect it, nor doubtful of the true character of the +deposit when I do. When examining, for instance, the accumulation of +broken Liasic materials in the neighborhood of Banff, I made it my first +care to ascertain whether the bank inclosed fragments of stone or shale +bearing the longitudinal markings; and felt satisfied, on finding that +it did, that I had discovered the period of its re-formation. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + Organisms of the Boulder-clay not unequivocal--First Impressions of + the Boulder-clay--Difficulty of accounting for its barrenness of + Remains--Sir Charles Lyell's reasoning--A Fact to the + contrary--Human Skull dug from a Clay-bank--The Author's Change of + Belief respecting Organic Remains of the Boulder-clay--Shells from + the Clay at Wick--Questions respecting them settled--Conclusions + confirmed by Mr. Dick's Discoveries at Thurso--Sir John Sinclair's + Discovery of Boulder-clay Shells in 1802--Comminution of the Shells + illustrated--_Cyprina islandica_--Its Preservation in larger + Proportions than those of other Shells accounted for--Boulder-clays + of Scotland reformed during the existing Geological Epoch--Scotland + in the Period of the Boulder-clay "merely three detached groups of + Islands"--Evidence of the Subsidence of the Land in + Scotland--Confirmed by Rev. Mr. Cumming's conclusion--High-lying + Granite Boulders--Marks of a succeeding elevatory + Period--Scandinavia now rising--Autobiography of a Boulder + desirable--A Story of the Supernatural. + +For the greater part of a quarter of a century I had been finding +organisms in abundance in the boulder-clay, but never anything organic +that unequivocally belonged to its own period. I had ascertained that it +contains in Ross and Cromarty nodules of the Old Red Sandstone, which +bear inside, like so many stone coffins, their well laid out skeletons +of the dead; but then the markings on their surface told me that when +the boulder-clay was in the course of deposition, they had been exactly +the same kind of nodules that they are now. In Moray, it incloses, I had +found, organisms of the Lias; but _they_ also testify that they present +an appearance in no degree more ancient at the present time than they +did when first enveloped by the clay. In East and West Lothian too, and +in the neighborhood of Edinburgh, I had detected in it occasional +organisms of the Mountain Limestone and the Coal Measures; but these, +not less surely than its Liasic fossils in Moray, and its Old Red +ichthyolites in Cromarty and Ross, belonged to an incalculably more +ancient state of things than itself; and--like those shrivelled +manuscripts of Pompeii or Herculaneum, which, whatever else they may +record, cannot be expected to tell aught of the catastrophe that buried +them up--they throw no light whatever on the deposit in which they +occur. I at length came to regard the boulder-clay--for it is difficult +to keep the mind in a purely blank state on any subject on which one +thinks a good deal--as representative of a chaotic period of death and +darkness, introductory, mayhap, to the existing scene of things. + +After, however, I had begun to mark the invariable connection of the +clay, as a deposit, with the dressed surfaces on which it rests, and the +longitudinal linings of the pebbles and boulders which it incloses, and +to associate it, in consequence, with an ice-charged sea and the Great +Gulf Stream, it seemed to me extremely difficult to assign a reason why +it should be thus barren of remains. Sir Charles Lyell states, in his +"Elements," that the "stranding of ice-islands in the bays of Iceland +since 1835 has driven away the fish for several successive seasons, and +thereby caused a famine among the inhabitants of the country;" and he +argues from the fact, "that a sea habitually infested with melting ice, +which would chill and freshen the water, might render the same +uninhabitable by marine mollusca." But then, on the other hand, it is +equally a fact that half a million of seals have been killed in a single +season on the meadow-ice a little to the north of Newfoundland, and that +many millions of cod, besides other fish, are captured yearly on the +shores of that island, though grooved and furrowed by ice-floes almost +every spring. Of the seal family it is specially recorded by +naturalists, that many of the species "are from choice inhabitants of +the margins of the frozen seas towards both poles; and, of course, in +localities in which many such animals live, some must occasionally die." +And though the grinding process would certainly have disjointed, and +might probably have worn down and partially mutilated, the bones of the +amphibious carnivora of the boulder period, it seems not in the least +probable, judging from the fragments of loose-grained sandstone and soft +shale which it has spared, that it would have wholly destroyed them. So +it happened, however, that from North Berwick to the Ord Hill of +Caithness, I had never found in the boulder-clay the slightest trace of +an organism that could be held to belong to itself; and as it seems +natural to build on negative evidence, if very extensive, considerably +more than mere negative evidence, whatever the circumstances, will +carry, I became somewhat skeptical regarding the very existence of +boulder-fossils,--a skepticism which the worse than doubtful character +of several supposed discoveries in the deposit served considerably to +strengthen. The clay forms, when cut by a water-course, or assailed on +the coast by some unusually high tide, a perpendicular precipice, which +in the course of years slopes into a talus; and as it exhibits in most +instances no marks of stratification, the clay of the talus--a mere +re-formation of fragments detached by the frosts and rains from the +exposed frontage--can rarely be distinguished from that of the original +deposit. Now, in these consolidated slopes it is not unusual to find +remains, animal and vegetable, of no very remote antiquity. I have seen +a human skull dug out of the reclining base of a clay-bank once a +precipice, fully six feet from under the surface. It might have been +deemed the skull of some long-lived contemporary of Enoch,--one of the +accursed race, mayhap, + + "Who sinned and died before the avenging flood." + +But, alas! the laborer dug a little further, and struck his pickaxe +against an old rybat that lay deeper still. There could be no mistaking +the character of the champfered edge, that still bore the marks of the +tool, nor that of the square perforation for the lock-bolt; and a rising +theory, that would have referred the boulder-clay to a period in which +the polar ice, set loose by the waters of the Noachian deluge, came +floating southwards over the foundered land, straightway stumbled +against it, and fell. Both rybat and skull had come from an ancient +burying-ground, that occupies a projecting angle of the table-land +above. I must now state, however, that my skepticism has thoroughly +given way; and that, slowly yielding to the force of positive evidence, +I have become as assured a believer in the _comminuted recent shells_ of +the boulder-clay as in the belemnites of the Oolite and Lias, or the +ganoid ichthyolites of the Old Red Sandstone. + +I had marked, when at Wick, on several occasions, a thick boulder-clay +deposit occupying the southern side of the harbor, and forming an +elevated platform, on which the higher parts of Pulteneytown are built; +but I had noted little else regarding it than that it bears the average +dark-gray color of the flagstones of the district, and that some of the +granitic boulders which protrude from its top and sides are of vast +size. On my last visit, however, rather more than two years ago, when +sauntering along its base, after a very wet morning, awaiting the Orkney +steamer, I was surprised to find, where a small slip had taken place +during the rain, that it was mottled over with minute fragments of +shells. These I examined, and found, so far as, in their extremely +broken condition, I dared determine the point, that they belonged in +such large proportion to one species,--the _Cyprina islandica_ of Dr. +Fleming,--that I could detect among them only a single fragment of any +other shell,--the pillar, apparently, of a large specimen of _Purpura +lapillus_. Both shells belong to that class of old existences,--long +descended, without the pride of ancient descent,--which link on the +extinct to the recent scenes of being. _Cyprina islandica_ and _Purpura +lapillus_ not only exist as living molluscs in the British seas, but +they occur also as crag-shells, side by side with the dead races that +have no place in the present fauna. At this time, however, I could but +think of them simply in their character as recent molluscs; and as it +seemed quite startling enough to find them in a deposit which I had once +deemed representative of a period of death, and still continued to +regard as obstinately unfossiliferous, I next set myself to determine +whether it really _was_ the boulder-clay in which they occurred. Almost +the first pebble which I disengaged from the mass, however, settled the +point, by furnishing the evidence on which for several years past I have +been accustomed to settle it;--it bore in the line of its longer axis, +on a polished surface, the freshly-marked grooves and scratchings of the +iceberg era. Still, however, I had my doubts, not regarding the deposit, +but the shells. Might they not belong merely to the talus of this bank +of boulder-clay?--a re-formation, in all probability, not _more_ ancient +than the elevation of the most recent of the old coast lines,--perhaps +greatly less so. Meeting with an intelligent citizen of Wick, Mr. John +Cleghorn, I requested him to keep a vigilant eye on the shells, and to +ascertain for me, when opportunity offered, whether they occurred deep +in the deposit, or were restricted to merely the base of its exposed +front. On my return from Orkney, he kindly brought me a small collection +of fragments, exclusively, so far as I could judge, of _Cyprina +islandica_, picked up in fresh sections of the clay; at the same time +expressing his belief that they really belonged to the deposit as such, +and were not accidental introductions into it from the adjacent shore. +And at this point for nearly two years the matter rested, when my +attention was again called to it by finding, in the publication of Mr. +Keith Johnston's admirable Geological Map of the British Islands, edited +by Professor Edward Forbes, that other eyes than mine had detected +shells in the boulder-clay of Caithness. "Cliffs of Pleistocene," says +the Professor, in one of his notes attached to the map, "occur at Wick, +containing boreal shells, especially _Astarte borealis_." + +I had seen the boulder-clay characteristically developed in the +neighborhood of Thurso; but, during a rather hurried visit, had lacked +time to examine it. The omission mattered the less, however, as my +friend Mr. Robert Dick is resident in the locality; and there are few +men who examine more carefully or more perseveringly than he, or who can +enjoy with higher relish the sweets of scientific research. I wrote him +regarding Professor Forbes's decision on the boulder-clay of Wick and +its shells; urging him to ascertain whether the boulder-clay of Thurso +had not its shells also. And almost by return of post I received from +him, in reply, a little packet of comminuted shells, dug out of a +deposit of the boulder-clay, laid open by the river Thorsa, a full mile +from the sea, and from eighty to a hundred feet over its level. He had +detected minute fragments of shell in the clay about a twelvemonth +before; but a skepticism somewhat similar to my own, added to the dread +of being deceived by mere surface shells, recently derived from the +shore in the character _of_ shell-sand, or of the edible species carried +inland for food, and then transferred from the ash-pit to the fields, +had not only prevented him from following up the discovery, but even +from thinking of it as such. But he eagerly followed it up now, by +visiting every bank of the boulder-clay in his locality within twenty +miles of Thurso, and found them all charged, from top to bottom, with +comminuted shells, however great their distance from the sea, or their +elevation over it. The fragments lie thick along the course of the +Thorsa, where the encroaching stream is scooping out the clay for the +first time since its deposition, and laying bare the scratched and +furrowed pebbles. They occur, too, in the depths of solitary ravines far +amid the moors, and underlie heath, and moss, and vegetable mould, on +the exposed hill-sides. The farm-house of Dalemore, twelve miles from +Thurso as the crow flies, and rather more than thirteen miles from Wick, +occupies, as nearly as may be, the centre of the county; and yet there, +as on the sea-shore, the boulder-clay is charged with its fragments of +marine shells. Though so barren elsewhere on the east coast of Scotland, +the clay is everywhere in Caithness a shell-bearing deposit; and no +sooner had Mr. Dick determined the fact for himself, at the expense of +many a fatiguing journey, and many an hour's hard digging, than he found +that it had been ascertained long before, though, from the very +inadequate style in which it had been recorded, science had in scarce +any degree benefited by the discovery. In 1802 the late Sir John +Sinclair, distinguished for his enlightened zeal in developing the +agricultural resources of the country, and for originating its +statistics, employed a mineralogical surveyor to explore the underground +treasures of the district; and the surveyor's journal he had printed +under the title of "Minutes and Observations drawn up in the course of a +Mineralogical Survey of the County of Caithness, ann. 1802, by John +Busby, Edinburgh." Now, in this journal there are frequent references +made to the occurrence of marine shells in the blue clay. Mr. Dick has +copied for me the two following entries,--for the work itself I have +never seen:--"1802, Sept. 7th.--Surveyed down the river [Thorsa] to +Geize; found blue clay-marl, _intermixed with marine shells_ in great +abundance." "Sept. 12th.--Set off this morning for Dalemore. Bored for +shell-marl in the 'grass-park;' found it in one of the quagmires, but to +no great extent. Bored for shell-marl in the 'house-park.' Surveyed by +the side of the river, and found blue clay-marl in great plenty, +_intermixed with marine shells, such as those found at Geize_. This +place is supposed to be about twenty miles from the sea; and is one +instance, among many in Caithness, of _the ocean's covering the inland +country at some former period of time_." + +The state of keeping in which the boulder-shells of Caithness occur is +exactly what, on the iceberg theory, might be premised. The ponderous +ice-rafts that went grating over the deep-sea bottom, grinding down its +rocks into clay, and deeply furrowing its pebbles, must have borne +heavily on its comparatively fragile shells. If rocks and pebbles did +not escape, the shells must have fared but hardly. And very hardly they +have fared: the rather unpleasant casualty of being crushed to death +must have been a greatly more common one in those days than in even the +present age of railways and machinery. The reader, by passing half a +bushel of the common shells of our shores through a barley-mill, as a +preliminary operation in the process, and by next subjecting the broken +fragments thus obtained to the attritive influence of the waves on some +storm-beaten beach for a twelvemonth or two, as a finishing operation, +may produce, when he pleases, exactly such a water-worn shelly debris as +mottles the blue boulder-clays of Caithness. The proportion borne by the +fragments of one species of shell to that of all the others is very +extraordinary. The _Cyprina islandica_ is still by no means a rare +mollusc on our Scottish shores, and may, on an exposed coast, after a +storm, be picked up by dozens, attached to the roots of the deep-sea +tangle. It is greatly less abundant, however, than such shells as +_Purpura lapillus_, _Mytilus edule_, _Cardium edule_, _Littorina +littorea_, and several others; whereas in the boulder-clay it is, in the +proportion of at least ten to one, more abundant than all the others put +together. The great strength of the shell, however, may have in part led +to this result; as I find that its stronger and massier portions,--those +of the umbo and hinge-joint,--are exceedingly numerous in proportion to +its slimmer and weaker fragments. "The _Cyprina islandica_," says Dr. +Fleming, in his "British Animals," "is the largest British bivalve +shell, measuring sometimes thirteen inches in circumference, and, +exclusively of the animal, weighing upwards of nine ounces." Now, in a +collection of fragments of Cyprina sent me by Mr. Dick, disinterred from +the boulder-clay in various localities in the neighborhood of Thurso, +and weighing in all about four ounces, I have detected the broken +remains of no fewer than _sixteen_ hinge joints. And on the same +principle through which the stronger fragments of Cyprina were preserved +in so much larger proportion than the weaker ones, may Cyprina +itself have been preserved in much larger proportion than its +more fragile neighbors. Occasionally, however,--escaped, as if by +accident,--characteristic fragments are found of shells by no means +very strong,--such as _Mytilus_, _Tellina_, and _Astarte_. Among the +univalves I can distinguish _Dentalium entale_, _Purpura lapillus_, +_Turritella terebra_, and _Littorina littorea_, all existing shells, but +all common also to at least the later deposits of the Crag. And among +the bivalves Mr. Dick enumerates,--besides the prevailing _Cyprina +islandica_,--_Venus casina_, _Cardium edule_, _Cardium echinatum_, +_Mytilus edule_, _Astarte danmoniensis_ (_sulcata_), and _Astarte +compressa_, with a _Mactra_, _Artemis_, and _Tellina_.[15] All the +determined species here, with the exception of _Mytilus edule_, have, +with many others, been found by the Rev. Mr. Cumming in the +boulder-clays of the Isle of Man; and all of them are living shells at +the present day on our Scottish coasts. It seems scarce possible to fix +the age of a deposit so broken in its organisms, on the principle that +would first seek to determine its per centage of extinct shells as the +data on which to found. One has to search sedulously and long ere a +fragment turns up sufficiently entire for the purpose of specific +identification, even when it belongs to a well-known living shell; and +did the clay contain some six or eight per cent. of the extinct in a +similarly broken condition (and there is no evidence that it contains a +single per cent. of extinct shells), I know not how, in the +circumstances, the fact could ever be determined. A lifetime might be +devoted to the task of fixing their real proportion, and yet be devoted +to it in vain. All that at present can be said is, that, judging from +what appears, the boulder-clays of Caithness, and with them the +boulder-clays of Scotland generally, and of the Isle of Man,--for they +are all palpably connected with the same iceberg phenomena, and occur +along the same zone in reference to the sea-level,--were formed during +the _existing_ geological epoch. + +These details may appear tediously minute; but let the reader mark how +very much they involve. The occurrence of recent shells largely diffused +throughout the boulder-clays of Caithness, at all heights and distances +from the sea at which the clay itself occurs, and not only connected +with the iceberg phenomena by the closest juxtaposition, but also +testifying distinctly to its agency by the extremely comminuted state in +which we find them, tell us, not only according to old John Busby, "that +the ocean covered the inland country at some former period of time," but +that it covered it to a great height at a time geologically recent, when +our seas were inhabited by exactly the same mollusca as inhabit them +now, and so far as yet appears, by none others. I have not yet detected +the boulder-clay at more than from six to eight hundred feet over the +level of the sea; but the travelled boulders I have often found at more +than a thousand feet over it; and Dr. John Fleming, the correctness of +whose observations few men acquainted with the character of his +researches or of his mind will be disposed to challenge, has informed me +that he has detected the dressed and polished surfaces at least four +hundred feet higher. There occurs a greenstone boulder, of from twelve +to fourteen tons weight, says Mr. M'Laren, in his "Geology of Fife and +the Lothians," on the south side of Black Hill (one of the Pentland +range), at about fourteen hundred feet over the sea. Now fourteen or +fifteen hundred feet, taken as the extreme height of the dressings, +though they are said to occur greatly higher, would serve to submerge in +the iceberg ocean almost the whole agricultural region of Scotland. The +common hazel (_Corylus avellana_) ceases to grow in the latitude of the +Grampians, at from one thousand two hundred to one thousand five hundred +feet over the sea level; the common bracken (_Pteris aquilina_) at about +the same height; and corn is never successfully cultivated at a greater +altitude. Where the hazel and bracken cease to grow, it is in vain to +attempt growing corn.[16] In the period of the boulder-clay, then, when +the existing shells of our coasts lived in those inland sounds and +friths of the country that now exist as broad plains or fertile valleys, +the sub-aerial superficies of Scotland was restricted to what are now +its barren and mossy regions, and formed, instead of one continuous +land, merely three detached groups of islands,--the small Cheviot and +Hartfell group,--the greatly larger Grampian and Ben Nevis group,--and a +group intermediate in size, extending from Mealfourvonny, on the +northern shores of Loch Ness, to the Maiden Paps of Caithness. + +The more ancient boulder-clays of Scotland seem to have been formed when +the land was undergoing a slow process of subsidence, or, as I should +perhaps rather say, when a very considerable area of the earth's +surface, including the sea-bottom, as well as the eminences that rose +over it, was the subject of a gradual depression; for little or no +alteration appears to have taken place at the time in the _relative_ +levels of the higher and lower portions of the sinking area: the +features of the land in the northern part of the kingdom, from the +southern flanks of the Grampians to the Pentland Frith, seemed to have +been fixed in nearly the existing forms many ages before, at the close, +apparently, of the Oolitic period, and at a still earlier age in the +Lammermuir district, to the south. And so the sea around our shores must +have deepened in the ratio in which the hills sank. The evidence of this +process of subsidence is of a character tolerably satisfactory. The +dressed surfaces occur in Scotland, most certainly, as I have already +stated on the authority of Dr. Fleming, at the height of fourteen +hundred feet over the present sea-level; it has been even said, at +fully twice that height, on the lofty flanks of Schehallion,--a +statement, however, which I have had hitherto no opportunity of +verifying. They may be found, too, equally well marked, under the +existing high-water line; and it is obviously impossible that the +dressing process could have been going on at the higher and lower levels +at the same time. When the icebergs were grating along the more elevated +rocks, the low-lying ones must have been buried under from three to +seven hundred fathoms of water,--a depth from three to seven times +greater, be it remembered, than that at which the most ponderous iceberg +could possibly have grounded, or have in any degree affected the bottom. +The dressing process, then, must have been a bit-and-bit process, +carried on during either a period of elevation, in which the rising land +was subjected, zone after zone, to the sweep of the armed ice from its +higher levels _downwards_, or during a period of subsidence, in which it +was subjected to the ice, zone after zone, from its lower levels +_upwards_. And that it was the lower, not the higher levels, that were +first dressed, appears evident from the circumstance, that though on +these lower levels we find the rocks covered up by continuous beds of +the boulder-clay, varying generally from twenty to a hundred feet in +thickness, they are, notwithstanding, as completely dressed under the +clay as on the heights above. Had it been a rising land that was +subjected to the attrition of the icebergs, the debris and dressings of +the higher rocks would have protected the lower from the attrition; and +so the thick accumulation of boulder-clay which overlies the old coast +line, for instance, would have rested, not on dressed, but on undressed +surfaces. The barer rocks of the lower levels might of course exhibit +their scratchings and polishings, like those of the higher; but wherever +these scratchings and polishings occurred in the inferior zones, no +thick protecting stratum of boulder-clay would be found overlying them; +and, _vice versa_, wherever in these zones there occurred thick beds of +boulder-clay, there would be detected on the rock beneath no scratchings +and polishings. In order to _dress_ the entire surface of a country from +the sea-line and under it to the tops of its hills, and at the same time +to cover up extensive portions of its low-lying rocks with vast deposits +of clay, it seems a necessary condition of the process that it should be +carried on piece-meal from the lower level upwards,--not from the higher +downwards. + +It interested me much to find, that while from one set of appearances I +had been inferring the gradual subsidence of the land during the period +of the boulder-clay, the Rev. Mr. Cumming of King William's College had +arrived, from the consideration of quite a different class of phenomena, +at a similar conclusion. "It appears to me highly probable," I find him +remarking, in his lately published "Isle of man," "that at the +commencement of the boulder period there was a gradual sinking of this +area [that of the island]. Successively, therefore, the points at +different degrees of elevation were brought within the influence of the +sea, and exposed to the rake of the tides, charged with masses of ice +which had been floated off from the surrounding shores, and bearing on +their under surfaces, mud, gravel, and fragments of hard rock." Mr. +Cumming goes on to describe, in his volume, some curious appearances, +which seem to bear direct on this point, in connection with a boss of a +peculiarly-compounded granite, which occurs in the southern part of the +island, about seven hundred feet over the level of the sea. There rise +on the western side of the boss two hills, one of which attains to the +elevation of nearly seven hundred, and the other of nearly eight hundred +feet over it; and yet both hills to their summits are mottled over with +granite boulders, furnished by the comparatively low-lying boss. One of +these travelled masses, fully two tons in weight, lies not sixty feet +from the summit of the loftier hill, at an altitude of nearly fifteen +hundred feet over the sea. Now, it seems extremely difficult to conceive +of any other agency than that of a rising sea or of a subsiding land, +through which these masses could have been rolled up the steep slopes of +the hills. Had the boulder period been a period of elevation, or merely +a stationary period, during which the land neither rose nor sank, the +travelled boulders would not now be found resting at higher levels than +that of the parent rock whence they were derived. We occasionally meet +on our shores, after violent storms from the sea, stones that have been +rolled from their place at low ebb to nearly the line of flood; but we +always find that it was by the waves of the rising, not of the falling +tide, that their transport was effected. For whatever removals of the +kind take place during an ebbing sea are invariably in an opposite +direction;--they are removals, not from lower to higher levels, but from +higher to lower. + +The upper subsoils of Scotland bear frequent mark of the elevatory +period which succeeded this period of depression. The boulder-clay has +its numerous intercalated arenaceous and gravelly beds, which belong +evidently to its own era; but the numerous surface-beds of stratified +sand and gravel by which in so many localities it is overlaid belong +evidently to a later time. When, after possibly a long protracted +period, the land again began to rise, or the sea to fall, the superior +portions of the boulder-clay must have been exposed to the action of the +tides and waves; and the same process of separation of parts must have +taken place on a large scale, which one occasionally sees taking place +in the present time on a comparatively small one, in ravines of the same +clay swept by a streamlet. After every shower, the stream comes down +red and turbid with the finer and more argillaceous portions of the +deposit; minute accumulations of sand are swept to the gorge of the +ravine, or cast down in ripple-marked patches in its deeper pools; beds +of pebbles and gravel are heaped up in every inflection of its banks; +and boulders are laid bare along its sides. Now, a separation, by a sort +of washing process of an analogous character, must have taken place in +the materials of the more exposed portions of the boulder-clay, during +the gradual emergence of the land; and hence, apparently, those +extensive beds of sand and gravel which in so many parts of the kingdom +exist, in relation to the clay, as a superior or upper subsoil; hence, +too, occasional beds of a purer clay than that beneath, divested of a +considerable portion of its arenaceous components, and of almost all its +pebbles and boulders. This _washed_ clay,--a re-formation of the boulder +deposit, cast down, mostly in insulated beds in quiet localities, where +the absence of currents suffered the purer particles held in suspension +by the water to settle,--forms, in Scotland at least, with, of course, +the exception of the ancient fire-clays of the Coal Measures, the true +brick and tile clays of the agriculturist and architect. + +It is to these superior beds that all the recent shells yet found above +the existing sea-level in Scotland, from the Dornoch Frith and beyond +it, to beyond the Frith of Forth, seem to belong. Their period is much +less remote than that of the shells of the boulder-clay, and they rarely +occur in the same comminuted condition. They existed, it would appear, +not during the chill twilight period, when the land was in a state of +subsidence, but during the after period of cheerful dawn, when hill-top +after hill-top was emerging from the deep, and the close of each passing +century witnessed a broader area of dry land in what is now Scotland, +than the close of the century which had gone before. Scandinavia is +similarly rising at the present day, and presents with every succeeding +age a more extended breadth of surface. Many of the boulder-stones seem +to have been cast down where they now lie, during this latter time. When +they occur, as in many instances, high on bare hill-tops, from five to +fifteen hundred feet over the sea-level, with neither gravel nor +boulder-clay beside them, we of course cannot fix their period. They may +have been dropped by ice-floes or shore-ice, where we now find them, at +the commencement of the period of elevation, after the clay had been +formed; or they may have been deposited by more ponderous icebergs +during its formation, when the land was yet sinking, though during the +subsequent rise the clay may have been washed from around them to lower +levels. The boulders, however, which we find scattered over the plains +and less elevated hill-sides, with beds of the washed gravel or sand +interposed between them and the clay, must have been cast down where +they lie, during the elevatory ages. For, had they been washed out of +the clay, they would have lain, not _over_ the greatly lighter sands and +gravels, but _under_ them. Would that they could write their own +histories! The autobiography of a single boulder, with notes on the +various floras which had sprung up around it, and the various classes of +birds, beasts, and insects by which it had been visited, would be worth +nine-tenths of all the autobiographies ever published, and a moiety of +the remainder to boot. + +A few hundred yards from the opening of this dell of the boulder-clay, +in which I have so long detained the reader, there is a wooded +inflection of the bank, formed by the old coast line, in which there +stood, about two centuries ago, a meal-mill, with the cottage of the +miller, and which was once known as the scene of one of those +supernaturalities that belong to the times of the witch and the fairy. +The upper anchoring-place of the bay lies nearly opposite the +inflection. A shipmaster, who had moored his vessel in this part of the +roadstead, some time in the latter days of the first Charles, was one +fine evening sitting alone on deck, awaiting the return of his seamen, +who had gone ashore, and amusing himself in watching the lights that +twinkled from the scattered farm-houses, and in listening, in the +extreme stillness of the calm, to the distant lowing of cattle, or the +abrupt bark of the herdsman's dog. As the hour wore later, the sounds +ceased, and the lights disappeared,--all but one solitary taper, that +twinkled from the window of the miller's cottage. At length, however, it +also disappeared, and all was dark around the shores of the bay, as a +belt of black velvet. Suddenly a hissing noise was heard overhead; the +shipmaster looked up, and saw what seemed to be one of those meteors +known as falling stars, slanting athwart the heavens in the direction of +the cottage, and increasing in size and brilliancy as it neared the +earth, until the wooded ridge and the shore could be seen as distinctly +from the ship-deck as by day. A dog howled piteously from one of the +out-houses,--an owl whooped from the wood. The meteor descended until it +almost touched the roof, when a cock crew from within; its progress +seemed instantly arrested; it stood still, rose about the height of a +ship's mast, and then began again to descend. The cock crew a second +time; it rose as before; and, after mounting considerably higher than at +first, again sank in the line of the cottage, to be again arrested by +the crowing of the cock. It mounted yet a third time, rising higher +still; and, in its last descent, had almost touched the roof, when the +faint clap of wings was heard as if whispered over the water, followed +by a still louder note of defiance from the cock. The meteor rose with a +bound, and, continuing to ascend until it seemed lost among the stars, +did not again appear. Next night, however, at the same hour, the same +scene was repeated in all its circumstances: the meteor descended, the +dog howled, the owl whooped, the cock crew. On the following morning the +shipmaster visited the miller's, and, curious to ascertain how the +cottage would fare when the cock was away, he purchased the bird; and, +sailing from the bay before nightfall, did not return until about a +month after. + +On his voyage inwards, he had no sooner doubled an intervening headland, +than he stepped forward to the bows to take a peep at the cottage: it +had vanished. As he approached the anchoring ground, he could discern a +heap of blackened stones occupying the place where it had stood; and he +was informed on going ashore, that it had been burnt to the ground, no +one knew how, on the very night he had quitted the bay. He had it +re-built and furnished, says the story, deeming himself what one of the +old schoolmen perhaps term the _occasional_ cause of the disaster. He +also returned the cock,--probably a not less important benefit,--and no +after accident befel the cottage. About fifteen years ago there was a +human skeleton dug up near the scene of the tradition, with the skull, +and the bones of the legs and feet, lying close together, as if the body +had been huddled up twofold in a hole; and this discovery led to that of +the story, which, though at one time often repeated and extensively +believed, had been suffered to sleep in the memories of a few elderly +people for nearly sixty years. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + Relation of the deep red stone of Cromarty to the Ichthyolite Beds + of the System--Ruins of a Fossil-charged Bed--Journey to Avoch--Red + Dye of the Boulder-clay distinct from the substance + itself--Variation of Coloring in the Boulder-clay Red Sandstone + accounted for--Hard-pan how formed--A reformed Garden--An ancient + Battle-field--Antiquity of Geologic and Human History + compared--Burn of Killein--Observation made in boyhood + confirmed--Fossil-nodules--Fine Specimen of _Coccosteus + decipiens_--Blank strata of Old Red--New View respecting the Rocks + of Black Isle--A Trip up Moray and Dingwall Friths--Altered color + of the Boulder-clay--Up the Auldgrande River--Scenery of the great + Conglomerate--Graphic Description--Laidlaw's Boulder--_Vaccinium + myrtillus_--Profusion of Travelled Boulders--The Boulder _Clach + Malloch_--Its zones of Animal and Vegetable Life. + + +The ravine excavated by the mill-dam showed me what I had never so well +seen before,--the exact relation borne by the deep red stone of the +Cromarty quarries to the ichthyolite beds of the system. It occupies the +same place, and belongs to the same period, as those superior beds of +the Lower Old Red Sandstone which are so largely developed in the cliffs +of Dunnet Head in Caithness, and of Tarbet Ness in Ross-shire, and which +were at one time regarded as forming, north of the Grampians, the +analogue of the New Red Sandstone. I paced it across the strata this +morning, in the line of the ravine, and found its thickness over the +upper fish-beds, though I was far from reaching its superior layers, +which are buried here in the sea, to be rather more than five hundred +feet. The fossiliferous beds occur a few hundred yards below the +dwelling-house of Rose Farm. They are not quite uncovered in the ravine; +but we find their places indicated by heaps of gray argillaceous shale, +mingled with their characteristic ichthyolitic nodules, in one of which +I found a small specimen of Cheiracanthus. The projecting edge of some +fossil-charged bed had been struck, mayhap, by an iceberg, and dashed +into ruins, just as the subsiding land had brought the spot within reach +of the attritive ice; and the broken heap thus detached had been shortly +afterwards covered up, without mixture of any other deposit, by the red +boulder-clay. On the previous day I had detected the fish-beds in +another new locality,--one of the ravines of the lawn of Cromarty +House,--where the gray shale, concealed by a covering of soil and sward +for centuries, had been laid bare during the storm by a swollen runnel, +and a small nodule, inclosing a characteristic plate of Pterichthys, +washed out. And my next object in to-day's journey, after exploring this +ravine of the boulder-clay, was to ascertain whether the beds did not +also occur in a ravine of the parish of Avoch, some eight or nine miles +away, which, when lying a-bed one night in Edinburgh, I remembered +having crossed when a boy, at a point which lies considerably out of the +ordinary route of the traveller. I had remarked on this occasion, as the +resuscitated recollection intimated, that the precipices of the Avoch +ravine bore, at the unfrequented point, the peculiar aspect which I +learned many years after to associate with the ichthyolitic member of +the system; and I was now quite as curious to test the truth of a sort +of vignette landscape, transferred to the mind at an immature period of +life, and preserved in it for full thirty years, as desirous to extend +my knowledge of the fossiliferous beds of a system to the elucidation of +which I had peculiarly devoted myself. + +As the traveller reaches the flat moory uplands of the parish, where the +water stagnates amid heath and moss over a thin layer of peaty soil, he +finds the underlying boulder-clay, as shown in the chance sections, +spotted and streaked with patches of a grayish-white. There is the same +mixture of arenaceous and aluminous particles in the white as in the red +portions of the mass; for, as we see so frequently exemplified in the +spots and streaks of the Red Sandstone formations, whether Old or New, +the coloring matter has been discharged without any accompanying change +of composition in the substance which it pervaded;--evidence enough that +the red dye must be something distinct from the substance itself, just +as the dye of a handkerchief is a thing distinct from the silk or cotton +yarn of which the handkerchief has been woven. The stagnant water above, +acidulated by its various vegetable solutions, seems to have been in +some way connected with these appearances. In every case in which a +crack through the clay gives access to the oozing moisture, we see the +sides bleached, for several feet downwards, to nearly the color of +pipe-clay; we find the surface, too, when it has been divested of the +vegetable soil, presenting for yards together the appearance of sheets +of half-bleached linen: the red ground of the clay has been acted upon +by the percolating fluid, as the red ground of a Bandanna handkerchief +is acted upon through the openings in the perforated lead, by the +discharging chloride of lime. The peculiar chemistry through which these +changes are effected might be found, carefully studied, to throw much +light on similar phenomena in the older formations. There are quarries +in the New Red Sandstone in which almost every mass of stone presents a +different shade of color from that of its neighboring mass, and quarries +in the Old Red the strata of which we find streaked and spotted like +pieces of calico. And their variegated aspect seems to have been +communicated, in every instance, not during deposition, nor after they +had been hardened into stone but when, like the boulder-clay, they +existed in an intermediate state. Be it remarked, too, that the red clay +here,--evidently derived from the abrasion of the red rocks beneath,--is +in dye and composition almost identical with the substance on which, as +an unconsolidated sandstone, the bleaching influences, whatever their +character, had operated in the Palaeozoic period, so many long ages +before;--it is a repetition of the ancient experiment in the Old Red, +that we now see going on in the boulder-clay. It is further worthy of +notice, that the bleached lines of the clay exhibit, viewed +horizontally, when the overlying vegetable mould has been removed, and +the whitened surface in immediate contact with it paired off, a +polygonal arrangement, like that assumed by the cracks in the bottom of +clayey pools dried up in summer by the heat of the sun. Can these +possibly indicate the ancient rents and fissures of the boulder-clay, +formed, immediately after the upheaval of the land, in the first process +of drying, and remaining afterwards open enough to receive what the +uncracked portions of the surface excluded,--the acidulated bleaching +fluid? + +The kind of ferruginous pavement of the boulder-clay known to the +agriculturist as _pan_, which may be found extending in some cases its +iron cover over whole districts,--sealing them down to barrenness, as +the iron and brass sealed down the stump of Nebuchadnezzar's tree,--is, +like the white strips and blotches of the deposit, worthy the careful +notice of the geologist. It serves to throw some light on the origin of +those continuous bands of clayey or arenaceous ironstone, which in the +older formations in which vegetable matter abounds, whether Oolitic or +Carboniferous, are of such common occurrence. The _pan_ is a stony +stratum, scarcely less indurated in some localities than sandstone of +the average hardness, that rests like a pavement on the surface of the +boulder-clay, and that generally bears atop a thin layer of sterile +soil, darkened by a russet covering of stunted heath. The binding cement +of the _pan_ is, as I have said, ferruginous, and seems to have been +derived from the vegetable covering above. Of all plants, the heaths are +found to contain most iron. Nor is it difficult to conceive how, in +comparatively flat tracts of heathy moor, where the surface water sinks +to the stiff subsoil, and on which one generation of plants after +another has been growing and decaying for many centuries, the minute +metallic particles, disengaged in the process of decomposition, and +carried down by the rains to the impermeable clay, should, by +accumulating there, bind the layer on which they rest, as is the nature +of ferruginous oxide, into a continuous stony crust. Wherever this _pan_ +occurs, we find the superincumbent soil doomed to barrenness,--arid and +sun-baked during the summer and autumn months, and, from the same cause, +overcharged with moisture in winter and spring. My friend Mr. Swanson, +when schoolmaster of Nigg, found a large garden attached to the +school-house so inveterately sterile as to be scarce worth cultivation; +a thin stratum of mould rested on a hard impermeable pavement of _pan_, +through which not a single root could penetrate to the tenacious but not +unkindly subsoil below. He set himself to work in his leisure hours, and +bit by bit laid bare and broke up the pavement. The upper mould, long +divorced from the clay on which it had once rested, was again united to +it; the piece of ground began gradually to alter its character for the +better; and when I last passed the way, I found it, though in a state of +sad neglect, covered by a richer vegetation than it had ever borne under +the more careful management of my friend. This ferruginous pavement of +the boulder-clay may be deemed of interest to the geologist, as a +curious instance of deposition in a dense medium, and as illustrative +of the changes which may be effected on previously existing strata, +through the agency of an overlying vegetation. + +I passed, on my way, through the ancient battle-field to which I have +incidentally referred in the story of the Miller of Resolis.[17] Modern +improvement has not yet marred it by the plough; and so it still bears +on its brown surface many a swelling tumulus and flat oblong mound, +and--where the high road of the district passes along its eastern +edge--the huge gray cairn, raised, says tradition, over the body of an +ancient Pictish king. But the contest of which it was the scene belongs +to a profoundly dark period, ere the gray dawn of Scottish history +began. As shown by the remains of ancient art occasionally dug up on the +moor, it was a conflict of the times of the stone battle-axe, the flint +arrow-head, and the unglazed sepulchral urn, unindebted for aught of its +symmetry to the turning-lathe,--times when there were heroes in +abundance, but no scribes. And the cairn, about a hundred feet in length +and breadth, by about twenty in height, with its long hoary hair of +overgrown lichen waving in the breeze, and the trailing club-moss +shooting upwards from its base along its sides, bears in its every +lineament full mark of its great age. It is a mound striding across the +stream of centuries, to connect the past with the present. And yet, +after all, what a mere matter of yesterday its extreme antiquity is! My +explorations this morning bore reference to but the later eras of the +geologist; the portion of the geologic volume which I was attempting to +decipher and translate formed the few terminal paragraphs of its +concluding chapter. And yet the _finis_ had been added to them for +thousands of years ere this latter antiquity began. The boulder-clay had +been formed and deposited; the land, in rising over the waves, had had +many a huge pebble washed out of its last formed red stratum, or dropped +upon it by ice-floes from above; and these pebbles lay mottling the +surface of this barren moor for mile after mile, bleaching pale to the +rains and the sun, as the meagre and mossy soil received, in the lapse +of centuries, its slow accessions of organic matter, and darkened around +them. And then, for a few brief hours, the heath, no longer solitary, +became a wild scene of savage warfare,--of waving arms and threatening +faces,--and of human lives violently spilled, gushing forth in blood; +and, when all was over, the old weathered boulders were heaped up above +the slain, and there began a new antiquity in relation to the pile in +its gathered state, that bore reference to man's short lifetime, and to +the recent introduction of the species. The child of a few summers +speaks of the events of last year as long gone by; while his father +advanced into middle life, regards them as still fresh and recent. + +I reached the Burn of Killein,--the scene of my purposed +explorations,--where it bisects the Inverness road; and struck down the +rocky ravine, in the line of the descending strata and the falling +streamlet, towards the point at which I had crossed it so many years +before. First I passed along a thick bed of yellow stone,--next over a +bed of stratified clay. "The little boy," I said, "took correct note of +what he saw, though without special aim at the time, and as much under +the guidance of a mere observative instinct as Dame Quickly, when she +took note of the sea-coal fire, the round table, the parcel-gilt goblet, +and goodwife Keech's dish of prawns dressed in vinegar, as adjuncts of +her interview with old Sir John when he promised to marry her. These +are unequivocally the ichthyolitic beds, whether they contain +ichthyolites or no." The first nodule I laid open presented inside +merely a pale oblong patch in the centre, which I examined in vain with +the lens, though convinced of its organic origin, for a single scale. +Proceeding farther down the stream, I picked a nodule out of a second +and lower bed, which contained more evidently its organism,--a +finely-reticulated fragment, that at first sight reminded me of some +delicate festinella of the Silurian system. It proved, however, to be +part of the tail of a Cheiracanthus, exhibiting--what is rarely +shown--the interior surfaces of those minute rectangular scales which in +this genus lie over the caudal fin, ranged in right lines. A second +nodule presented me with the spines of _Diplacanthus striatus_; and +still farther down the stream,--for the beds are numerous here, and +occupy in vertical extent very considerable space in the system,--I +detected a stratum of bulky nodules charged with fragments of +Coccosteus, belonging chiefly to two species,--_Coccosteus decipiens_ +and _Coccosteus cuspidatus_. All the specimens bore conclusive evidence +regarding the geologic place and character of the beds in which they +occur; and in one of the number, a specimen of _Coccosteus decipiens_, +sufficiently fine to be transferred to my knapsack, and which now +occupies its corner in my little collection, the head exhibits all its +plates in their proper order, and the large dorsal plate, though +dissociated from the nail-like attachment of the nape, presents its +characteristic breadth entire. It was the plates of this species, first +found in the flagstones of Caithness, which were taken for those of a +fresh-water tortoise; and hence apparently its specific name, +_decipiens_;--it is the _deceiving_ Coccosteus. I disinterred, in the +course of my explorations, as many nodules as lay within reach,--now and +then longing for a pickaxe, and a companion robust and persevering +enough to employ it with effect; and after seeing all that was to be +seen in the bed of the stream and the precipices, I retraced my steps up +the dell to the highway. And then, striking off across the moor to the +north,--ascending in the system as I climbed the eminence, which forms +here the central ridge of the old Maolbuie Common,--I spent some little +time in a quarry of pale red sandstone, known, from the moory height on +which it has been opened, as the quarry of the Maolbuie. But here, as +elsewhere, the folds of that upper division of the Lower Old Red in +which it has been excavated contain nothing organic. Why this should be +so universally the case,--for in Caithness, Orkney, Cromarty, and Ross, +wherever, in short, this member of the system is unequivocally +developed, it is invariably barren of remains,--cannot, I suspect, be +very satisfactorily explained. Fossils occur both over and under it, in +rocks that seem as little favorable to their preservation; but during +that intervening period which its blank strata represent, at least the +_species_ of all the ichthyolites of the system seem to have changed, +and, so far as is yet known, the _genus_ Coccosteus died out entirely. + +The Black Isle has been elaborately described in the last Statistical +Account of the Parish of Avoch as comprising at least the analogues of +three vast geologic systems. The Great Conglomerate, and the thick bed +of coarse sandstone of corresponding character that lies over it, +compose all which is not primary rock of that south-eastern ridge of the +district which forms the shores of the Moray Frith; and _they_ are +represented in the Account as Old Red Sandstone proper. Then, next in +order,--forming the base of a parallel ridge,--come those sandstone and +argillaceous bands to which the ichthyolite beds belong; and these +though at the time the work appeared their existence in the locality +could be but guessed at, are described as representatives of the Coal +Measures. Last of all there occur those superior sandstones of the Lower +Old Red formation in which the quarry of the Maolbuie has been opened, +and which are largely developed in the central or _backbone_ ridge of +the district. "And these," says the writer, "we have little hesitation +in assigning to the _New_ Red, or variegated Sandstone formation." I +remember that some thirteen years ago,--in part misled by authority, and +in part really afraid to represent beds of such an enormous aggregate +thickness as all belonging to one inconsiderable formation,--for such +was the character of the Old Red Sandstone at the time,--I ventured, +though hesitatingly, and with less of detail, on a somewhat similar +statement regarding the sandstone deposits of the parish of Cromarty. +But true it is, notwithstanding, that the stratified rocks of the Black +Isle are composed generally, not of the analogues of three systems, but +of merely a fractional portion of a single system,--a fact previously +established in other parts of the district, and which my discovery of +this day in the Burn of Killein served yet farther to confirm in +relation to that middle portion of the tract in which the parish of +Avoch is situated. The geologic records, unlike the Sybilline books, +grow in volume and number as one pauses and hesitates over them; +demanding, however, with every addition to their bulk, a larger and yet +larger sum of epochs and of ages. + +The sun had got low in the western sky, and I had at least some eight or +nine miles of rough road still before me; but the day had been a happy +and not unsuccessful one, and so its hard work had failed to fatigue. +The shadows, however, were falling brown and deep on the bleak Maolbuie, +as I passed, on my return, the solitary cairn; and it was dark night +long ere I reached Cromarty. Next morning I quitted the town for the +upper reaches of the Frith, to examine yet further the superficial +deposits and travelled boulders of the district. + +I landed at Invergordon a little after noon, from the Leith steamer, +that, on its way to the upper ports of the Moray and Dingwall Friths, +stops at Cromarty for passengers every Wednesday; and then passing +direct through the village, I took the western road which winds along +the shore towards Strathpeffer, skirting on the right the ancient +province of the Munroes. The day was clear and genial; and the +wide-spreading woods of this part of the country, a little touched by +their autumnal tints of brown and yellow, gave a warmth of hue to the +landscape, which at an earlier season it wanted. A few slim streaks of +semi-transparent mist, that barred the distant hill-peaks, and a few +towering piles of intensely white cloud, that shot across the deep blue +of the heavens, gave warning that the earlier part of the day was to be +in all probability the better part of it, and that the harvest of +observation which it was ultimately to yield might be found to depend on +the prompt use made of the passing hour. What first attracts the +attention of the geologist, in journeying westwards, is the altered +color of the boulder-clay, as exhibited in ditches by the way-side, or +along the shore. It no longer presents that characteristic red +tint,--borrowed from the red sandstone beneath,--so prevalent over the +Black Isle, and in Easter Ross generally; but is of a cold leaden hue, +not unlike that which it wears above the Coal Measures of the south, or +over the flagstones of Caithness. The altered color here is evidently a +consequence of the large development, in Ferindonald and Strathpeffer, +of the ichthyolitic members of the Old Red, existing chiefly as fetid +bituminous breccias and dark-colored sandstones: the boulder-clay of +the locality forms the dressings, not of red, but of blackish-gray +rocks; and, as almost everywhere else in Scotland, its trail lies to the +east of the strata, from which it was detached in the character of an +impalpable mud by the age-protracted grindings of the denuding agent. It +abounds in masses of bituminous breccia, some of which, of great size, +seem to have been drifted direct from the valley of Strathpeffer, and +are identical in structure and composition with the rock in which the +mineral springs of the Strath have their rise, and to which they owe +their peculiar qualities. + +After walking on for about eight miles, through noble woods and a lovely +country, I struck from off the high road at the pretty little village of +Evanton, and pursued the course of the river Auldgrande, first through +intermingled fields and patches of copsewood, and then through a thick +fir wood, to where the bed of the stream contracts from a +boulder-strewed bottom of ample breadth, to a gloomy fissure, so deep +and dark, that in many places the water cannot be seen, and so narrow, +that the trees which shoot out from the opposite sides interlace their +branches atop. Large banks of the gray boulder-clay, laid open by the +river, and charged with fragments of dingy sandstone and dark-colored +breccia, testify, along the lower reaches of the stream, to the near +neighborhood of the ichthyolitic member of the Old Red; but where the +banks contract, we find only its lowest member, the Great Conglomerate. +This last is by far the most picturesque member of the system,--abrupt +and bold of outline in its hills, and mural in its precipices. And +nowhere does it exhibit a wilder or more characteristic beauty than at +the tall narrow portal of the Auldgrande, where the river,--after +wailing for miles in a pent-up channel, narrow as one of the lanes of +old Edinburgh, and hemmed in by walls quite as perpendicular, and +nearly twice as lofty,--suddenly expands, first into a deep brown pool, +and then into a broad tumbling stream, that, as if permanently affected +in temper by the strict severity of the discipline to which its early +life had been subjected, frets and chafes in all its after course, till +it loses itself in the sea. The banks, ere we reach the opening of the +chasm, have become steep, and wild, and densely wooded; and there stand +out on either hand, giant crags, that plant their iron feet in the +stream; here girdled with belts of rank succulent shrubs, that love the +damp shade and the frequent drizzle of the spray; and there hollow and +bare, with their round pebbles sticking out from the partially +decomposed surface, like the piled-up skulls in the great underground +cemetery of the Parisians. Massy trees, with their green fantastic roots +rising high over the scanty soil, and forming many a labyrinthine recess +for the frog, the toad, and the newt, stretch forth their gnarled arms +athwart the stream. In front of the opening, with but a black deep pool +between, there lies a midway bank of huge stones. Of these, not a few of +the more angular masses still bear, though sorely worn by the torrent, +the mark of the blasting iron, and were evidently tumbled into the chasm +from the fields above. But in the chasm there was no rest for them, and +so the arrowy rush of the water in the confined channel swept them down +till they dropped where they now lie, just where the widening bottom +first served to dissipate the force of the current. And over the sullen +pool in front we may see the stern pillars of the portal rising from +eighty to a hundred feet in height, and scarce twelve feet apart, like +the massive obelisks of some Egyptian temple; while, in gloomy vista +within, projection starts out beyond projection, like column beyond +column in some narrow avenue of approach to Luxor or Carnac. The +precipices are green, with some moss or byssus, that like the miner, +chooses a subterranean habitat,--for here the rays of the sun never +fall; the dead, mossy water beneath, from which the cliffs rise so +abruptly, bears the hue of molten pitch; the trees, fast anchored in the +rock, shoot out their branches across the opening, to form a thick +tangled roof, at the height of a hundred and fifty feet overhead; while +from the recesses within, where the eye fails to penetrate, there issues +a combination of the strangest and wildest sounds ever yet produced by +water: there is the deafening rush of the torrent, blent as if with the +clang of hammers, the roar of vast bellows, and the confused gabble of a +thousand voices. The sun, hastening to its setting, shone red, yet +mellow, through the foliage of the wooded banks on the west, where, high +above, they first curve from the sloping level of the fields, to bend +over the stream; or fell more direct on the jutting cliffs and bosky +dingles opposite, burnishing them as if with gold and fire; but all was +coldly-hued at the bottom, where the torrent foamed gray and chill under +the brown shadow of the banks; and where the narrow portal opened an +untrodden way into the mysterious recesses beyond, the shadow deepened +almost into blackness. The scene lacked but a ghost to render it +perfect. An apparition walking from within like the genius in one of +Goldsmith's essays "along the surface of the water," would have +completed it at once. + +Laying hold of an overhanging branch, I warped myself upwards from the +bed of the stream along the face of a precipice, and, reaching its +sloping top, forced my way to the wood above, over a steep bank covered +with tangled underwood, and a slim succulent herbage, that sickened for +want of the sun. The yellow light was streaming through many a shaggy +vista, as, threading my way along the narrow ravine as near the steep +edge as the brokenness of the ground permitted, I reached a huge mass +of travelled rock, that had been dropped in the old boulder period +within a yard's length of the brink. It is composed of a characteristic +granitic gneiss of a pale flesh-color, streaked with black, that, in the +hand specimen, can scarce be distinguished from a true granite, but +which, viewed in the mass, presents, in the arrangement of its intensely +dark mica, evident marks of stratification, and which is remarkable, +among other things, for furnishing almost all the very large boulders of +this part of the country. Unlike many of the granitic gneisses, it is a +fine solid stone, and would cut well. When I had last the pleasure of +spending a few hours with the late Mr. William Laidlaw, the trusted +friend of Sir Walter Scott, he intimated to me his intention,--pointing +to a boulder of this species of gneiss,--of having it cut into two +oblong pedestals, with which he purposed flanking the entrance to the +mansion-house of the chief of the Rosses,--the gentleman whose property +he at that time superintended. It was, he said, both in appearance and +history, the most remarkable stone on the lands of Balnagown; and so he +was desirous that it should be exhibited at Balnagown Castle to the best +advantage. But as he fell shortly after into infirm health, and resigned +his situation, I know not that he ever carried his purpose into effect. +The boulder here, beside the chasm, measures about twelve feet in length +and breadth, by from five to six in height, and contains from eight to +nine hundred cubic feet of stone. On its upper table-like surface I +found a few patches of moss and lichen, and a slim reddening tuft of the +_Vaccinium myrtillus_, still bearing, late as was the season, its +half-dozen blaeberries. This pretty little plant occurs in great +profusion along the steep edges of the Auldgrande, where its delicate +bushes, springing up amid long heath and ling, and crimsoned by the +autumnal tinge, gave a peculiar warmth and richness this evening to +those bosky spots under the brown trees, or in immediate contact with +the dark chasm on which the sunlight fell most strongly; and on all the +more perilous projections, I found the dark berries still shrivelling on +their stems. Thirty years earlier I would scarce have left them there; +and the more perilous the crag on which they had grown, the more +deliciously would they have eaten. But every period of life has its own +playthings; and I was now chiefly engaged with the deep chasm and the +huge boulder. Chasm and boulder had come to have greatly more of +interest to me than the delicate berries, or than even that sovereign +dispeller of ennui and low spirits, an adventurous scramble among the +cliffs. + +In what state did the chasm exist when the huge boulder,--detached, +mayhap, at the close of a severe frost, from some island of the +archipelago that is now the northern Highlands of Scotland,--was +suffered to drop beside it, from some vast ice-floe drifting eastwards +on the tide? In all probability merely as a fault in the Conglomerate, +similar to many of those faults which in the Coal Measures of the +southern districts we find occupied by continuous dikes of trap. But in +this northern region, where the trap-rocks are unknown, it must have +been filled up with the boulder-clay, or with some still more ancient +accumulation of debris. And when the land had risen, and the streams, +swollen into rivers, flowed along the hollows which they now occupy, the +loose rubbish would in the lapse of ages gradually wash downwards to the +sea, as the stones thrown from the fields above were washed downwards in +a later time; and thus the deep fissure would ultimately be cleared out. +The boulder-stones lie thickly in this neighborhood, and over the +eastern half of Ross-shire, and the Black Isle generally; though for +the last century they have been gradually disappearing from the more +cultivated tracts on which there were fences or farm-steadings to be +built, or where they obstructed the course of the plough. We found them +occurring in every conceivable situation,--high on hill-sides, where the +shepherd crouches beside them for shelter in a shower,--deep in the open +sea, where they entangle the nets of the fisherman,--on inland moors, +where in some remote age they were painfully rolled together, to form +the Druidical circle or Picts'-house,--or on the margin of the coast, +where they had been piled over one another at a later time, as +protecting bulwarks against the encroachments of the waves. They lie +strewed more sparingly over extended plains, or on exposed heights, than +in hollows sheltered from the west by high land, where the current, when +it dashed high on the hill-sides, must have been diverted from its +easterly course, and revolved in whirling eddies. On the top of the fine +bluff hill of Fyrish, which I so admired to-day, each time I caught a +glimpse of its purple front through the woods, and which shows how noble +a mountain the Old Red Sandstone may produce, the boulders lie but +sparsely. I especially marked, however, when last on its summit, a +ponderous traveller of a vividly green hornblende, resting on a bed of +pale yellow sandstone, fully a thousand feet over the present high-water +level. But towards the east, in what a seaman would term the _bight_ of +the hill, the boulders have accumulated in vast numbers. They lie so +closely piled along the course of the river Alness, about half a mile +above the village, that it is with difficulty the waters, when in flood, +can force their passage through. For here, apparently, when the tide +swept along the hill-side, many an ice-floe, detained in the shelter by +the revolving eddy, dashed together in rude collision, and shook their +stony burdens to the bottom. Immediately to the east of the low +promontory on which the town of Cromarty is built there is another +extensive accumulation of boulders, some of them of great size. They +occupy exactly the place to which I have oftener than once seen the +drift-ice of the upper part of the Cromarty Frith, set loose by a thaw, +and then carried seawards by the retreating tide, forced back by a +violent storm from, the east, and the fragments ground against each +other into powder. And here, I doubt not, of old, when the sea stood +greatly higher than now, and the ice-floes were immensely larger and +more numerous than those formed, in the existing circumstances, in the +upper shallows of the Frith, would the fierce north-east have charged +home with similar effect, and the broken masses have divested themselves +of their boulders. + +The Highland chieftain of one of our old Gaelic traditions conversed +with a boulder-stone, and told to it the story which he had sworn never +to tell to man. I too, after a sort, have conversed with boulder-stones, +not, however, to tell them any story of mine, but to urge them to tell +theirs to me. But, lacking the fine ear of Hans Anderson, the Danish +poet, who can hear flowers and butterflies talk, and understand the +language of birds, I have as yet succeeded in extracting from them no +such articulate reply + + "As Memnon's image, long renowned of old + By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch + Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string + Consenting, sounded through the warbling air." + +And yet, who can doubt that, were they a little more communicative, +their stories of movement in the past, with the additional circumstances +connected with the places which they have occupied ever since they gave +over travelling, would be exceedingly curious ones? Among the boulder +group to the east of Cromarty, the most ponderous individual stands so +exactly on the low-water line of our great Lammas tides, that though its +shoreward edge may be reached dry-shod from four to six times every +twelvemonth, no one has ever succeeded in walking dry shod round it. I +have seen a strong breeze from the west, prolonged for a few days, +prevent its drying, when the Lammas stream was at its point of lowest +ebb, by from a foot to eighteen inches,--an indication, apparently, that +to that height the waters of the Atlantic may be heaped up against our +shores by the impulsion of the wind. And the recurrence, during at least +the last century, of certain ebbs each season, which, when no disturbing +atmospheric phenomena interfere with their operation, are sure to lay it +dry, demonstrate, that during that period no change, even the most +minute, has taken place on our coasts, in the relative levels of sea and +shore. The waves have considerably encroached, during even the last +half-century, on the shores immediately opposite; but it must have been, +as the stone shows, simply by the attrition of the waves, and the +consequent lowering of the beach,--not through any rise in the ocean, or +any depression of the land. + +The huge boulder here has been known for ages as the _Clach Malloch_, or +accursed stone, from the circumstance, says tradition, that a boat was +once wrecked upon it during a storm, and the boatmen drowned. Though +little more than seven feet in height, by about twelve in length, and +some eight or nine in breadth, its situation on the extreme line of ebb +imparts a peculiar character to the various productions, animal and +vegetable, which we find adhering to it. They occur in zones, just as on +lofty hills the botanist finds his agricultural, moorland, and alpine +zones rising in succession as he ascends, the one over the other. At its +base, where the tide rarely falls, we find two varieties of _Lobularia +digitata_, dead man's hand, the orange colored and the pale, with a +species of sertularia; and the characteristic vegetable is the +rough-stemmed tangle, or cuvy. In the zone immediately above the lowest, +these productions disappear; the characteristic animal, if animal it be, +is a flat yellow sponge,--the _Halichondria papillaris_,--remarkable +chiefly for its sharp siliceous spicula and its strong phosphoric smell; +and the characteristic vegetable is the smooth-stemmed tangle, or +queener. In yet another zone we find the common limpet and the vesicular +kelp-weed; and the small gray balanus and serrated kelp-weed form the +productions of the top. We may see exactly the same zones occurring in +broad belts along the shore,--each zone indicative of a certain +overlying depth of water; but it seems curious enough to find them all +existing in succession on one boulder. Of the boulder and its story, +however, more in my next. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + Imaginary Autobiography of the _Clach Malloch_ Boulder--Its + Creation--Its long night of unsummed Centuries--Laid open to light + on a desert Island--Surrounded by an Arctic Vegetation--Undermined + by the rising Sea--Locked up and floated off on an Ice-field--At + rest on the Sea-bottom--Another Night of unsummed Years--The + Boulder raised again above the waves by the rising of the + Land--Beholds an altered Country--Pine Forests and Mammals--Another + Period of Ages passes--The Boulder again floated off by an + Iceberg--Finally at rest on the Shore of Cromarty Bay--Time and + Occasion of naming it--Strange Phenomena accounted for by + Earthquakes--How the Boulder of Petty Bay was moved--The Boulder of + Auldgrande--The old Highland Paupers--The little Parsi Girl--Her + Letter to her Papa--But one Human Nature on Earth--Journey + resumed--Conon Burying Ground--An aged Couple--Gossip. + +The natural, and, if I may so speak, topographical, history of the +_Clach Malloch_,--including, of course, its zoology and botany, with +notes of those atmospheric effects on the tides, and of that stability +for ages of the existing sea-level, which it indicates,--would of itself +form one very interesting chapter: its geological history would furnish +another. It would probably tell, if it once fairly broke silence and +became autobiographical, first of a feverish dream of intense molten +heat and overpowering pressure; and then of a busy time, in which the +free molecules, as at once the materials and the artisans of the mass, +began to build, each according to its nature, under the superintendence +of a curious chemistry,--here forming sheets of black mica, there rhombs +of a dark-green hornblende and a flesh-colored feldspar, yonder +amorphous masses of a translucent quartz. It would add further, that at +length, when the slow process was over, and the entire space had been +occupied to the full by plate, molecule, and crystal, the red fiery +twilight of the dream deepened into more than midnight gloom, and a +chill unconscious night descended on the sleeper. The vast Palaeozoic +period passes by,--the scarce less protracted Secondary ages come to a +close,--the Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene epochs are ushered in and +terminate,--races begin and end,--families and orders are born and die; +but the dead, or those whose deep slumber admits not of dreams, take no +note of time; and so it would tell how its long night of unsummed +centuries seemed, like the long night of the grave, compressed into a +moment. + +The marble silence is suddenly broken by the rush of an avalanche, that +tears away the superincumbent masses, rolling them into the sea; and the +ponderous block, laid open to the light, finds itself on the bleak shore +of a desert island of the northern Scottish archipelago, with a wintry +scene of snow-covered peaks behind, and an ice-mottled ocean before. The +winter passes, the cold severe spring comes on, and day after day the +field-ice goes floating by,--now gray in shadow, now bright in the sun. +At length vegetation, long repressed, bursts forth, but in no profuse +luxuriance. A few dwarf birches unfold their leaves amid the rocks; a +few sub-arctic willows hang out their catkins beside the swampy runnels; +the golden potentilla opens its bright flowers on slopes where the +evergreen _Empetrum nigrum_ slowly ripens its glossy crow-berries; and +from where the sea-spray dashes at full tide along the beach, to where +the snow gleams at midsummer on the mountain-summits, the thin short +sward is dotted by the minute cruciform stars of the scurvy-grass, and +the crimson blossoms of the sea-pink. Not a few of the plants of our +existing sea-shores and of our loftier hill-tops are still identical in +species; but wide zones of rich herbage, with many a fertile field and +many a stately tree, intervene between the bare marine belts and the +bleak insulated eminences; and thus the alpine, notwithstanding its +identity with the littoral flora, has been long divorced from it; but in +this early time the divorce had not yet taken place, nor for ages +thereafter; and the same plants that sprang around the sea-margin rose +also along the middle slopes to the mountain-summits. The landscape is +treeless and bare, and a hoary lichen whitens the moors, and waves, as +the years pass by, in pale tufts, from the disinterred stone, now +covered with weather-stains, green and gray, and standing out in bold +and yet bolder relief from the steep hill-side as the pulverizing frosts +and washing rains bear away the lesser masses from around it. The sea is +slowly rising, and the land, in proportion, narrowing its flatter +margins, and yielding up its wider valleys to the tide; the low green +island of one century forms the half-tide skerry, darkened with algae, of +another, and in yet a third exists but as a deep-sea rock. As its summit +disappears, groups of hills, detached from the land, become islands, +skerries, deep-sea rocks, in turn. At length the waves at full wash +within a few yards of the granitic block. And now, yielding to the +undermining influences, just as a blinding snow-shower is darkening the +heavens, it comes thundering down the steep into the sea, where it lies +immediately beneath the high-water line, surrounded by a wide float of +pulverized ice, broken by the waves. A keen frost sets in; the +half-fluid mass around is bound up for many acres into a solid raft, +that clasps fast in its rigid embrace the rocky fragment; a stream-tide, +heightened by a strong gale from the west, rises high on the beach; the +consolidated ice-field moves, floats, is detached from the shore, creeps +slowly outwards into the offing, bearing atop the boulder; and, +finally, caught by the easterly current, it drifts away into the open +ocean. And then, far from its original bed in the rock, amid the +jerkings of a cockling sea, the mass breaks through the supporting +float, and settles far beneath, amid the green and silent twilight of +the bottom, where its mosses and lichens yield their place to stony +encrustations of deep purple, and to miniature thickets of arboraceous +zoophites. + +The many-colored Acalephae float by; the many-armed Sepiadae shoot over; +while shells that love the profounder depths,--the black Modiola and +delicate Anomia,--anchor along the sides of the mass; and where thickets +of the deep-sea tangle spread out their long, streamer-like fronds to +the tide, the strong Cyprina and many-ribbed Astarte shelter by scores +amid the reticulations of the short woody stems and thick-set roots. A +sudden darkness comes on, like that which fell upon Sinbad when the +gigantic roc descended upon him; the sea-surface is fully sixty fathoms +over head; but even at this great depth an enormous iceberg grates +heavily against the bottom, crushing into fragments in its course, +Cyprina, Modiola, Astarte, with many a hapless mollusc besides; and +furrows into deep grooves the very rocks on which they lie. It passes +away; and, after many an unsummed year has also passed, there comes +another change. The period of depression and of the boulder-clay is +over. The water has shallowed as the sea-line gradually sank, or the +land was propelled upwards by some elevatory process from below; and +each time the tide falls, the huge boulder now raises over the waters +its broad forehead, already hung round with flowing tresses of brown +sea-weed, and looks at the adjacent coast. The country has strangely +altered its features: it exists no longer as a broken archipelago, +scantily covered by a semi-arctic vegetation, but as a continuous land, +still whitened, where the great valleys open to the sea, by the pale +gleam of local glaciers, and snow-streaked on its loftier hill-tops. But +vast forests of dark pine sweep along its hill-sides or selvage its +shores; and the sheltered hollows are enlivened by the lighter green of +the oak, the ash, and the elm. Human foot has not yet imprinted its +sward; but its brute inhabitants have become numerous. The cream-colored +coat of the wild bull,--a speck of white relieved against a ground of +dingy green,--may be seen far amid the pines, and the long howl of the +wolf heard from the nearer thickets. The gigantic elk raises himself +from his lair, and tosses his ponderous horns at the sound; while the +beaver, in some sequestered dell traversed by a streamlet, plunges +alarmed into his deep coffer-dam, and, rising through the submerged +opening of his cell, shelters safely within, beyond reach of pursuit. +The great transverse valleys of the country, from its eastern to its +western coasts, are still occupied by the sea,--they exist as broad +ocean-sounds; and many of the detached hills rise around its shores as +islands. The northern Sutor forms a bluff high island, for the plains of +Easter Ross are still submerged; and the Black Isle is in reality what +in later times it is merely in name,--a sea-encircled district, holding +a midway place between where the Sound of the great Caledonian Valley +and the Sounds of the Valleys of the Conon and Carron open into the +German Ocean. Though the climate has greatly softened, it is still, as +the local glaciers testify, ungenial and severe. Winter protracts his +stay through the later months of spring; and still, as of old, vast +floats of ice, detached from the glaciers, or formed in the lakes and +shallower estuaries of the interior, come drifting down the Sounds every +season, and disappear in the open sea, or lie stranded along the shores. + +Ages have again passed: the huge boulder, from the further sinking of +the waters, lies dry throughout the neaps, and is covered only at the +height of each stream-tide; there is a float of ice stranded on the +beach, which consolidates around it during the neap, and is floated off +by the stream; and the boulder, borne in its midst, as of old, again +sets out a voyaging. It has reached the narrow opening of the Sutors, +swept downwards by the strong ebb current, when a violent storm from the +north-east sets in; and, constrained by antagonist forces,--the sweep of +the tide on the one hand, and the roll of the waves on the other,--the +ice-raft deflects into the little bay that lies to the east of the +promontory now occupied by the town of Cromarty. And there it tosses, +with a hundred more jostling in rude collision; and at length bursting +apart, the _Clach Malloch_, its journeyings forever over, settles on its +final resting-place. In a period long posterior it saw the ultimate +elevation of the land. Who shall dare say how much more it witnessed, or +decide that it did not form the centre of a rich forest vegetation, and +that the ivy did not cling round it, and the wild rose shed its petals +over it, when the Dingwall, Moray, and Dornoch Friths existed as +sub-aerial valleys, traversed by streams that now enter the sea far +apart, but then gathered themselves into one vast river, that, after it +had received the tributary waters of the Shin and the Conon, the Ness +and the Beauly, the Helmsdale, the Brora, the Findhorn, and the Spey, +rolled on through the flat secondary formations of the outer Moray +Frith,--Lias, and Oolite, and Greensand, and Chalk,--to fall into a gulf +of the Northern Ocean which intervened between the coasts of Scotland +and Norway, but closed nearly opposite the mouth of the Tyne, leaving a +broad level plain to connect the coasts of England with those of the +Continent! Be this as it may, the present sea-coast became at length the +common boundary of land and sea. And the boulder continued to exist for +centuries still later as a nameless stone, on which the tall gray heron +rested moveless and ghost-like in the evenings, and the seal at mid-day +basked lazily in the sun. And then there came a night of fierce tempest, +in which the agonizing cry of drowning men was heard along the shore. +When the morning broke, there lay strewed around a few bloated corpses, +and the fragments of a broken wreck; and amid wild execrations and loud +sorrow the boulder received its name. Such is the probable history, +briefly told, because touched at merely a few detached points, of the +huge _Clach Malloch_. The incident of the second voyage here is of +course altogether imaginary, in relation to at least this special +boulder; but it is to second voyages only that all our positive evidence +testifies in the history of its class. The boulders of the St. Lawrence, +so well described by Sir Charles Lyell, voyage by thousands every +year;[18] and there are few of my northern readers who have not heard of +the short trip taken nearly half a century ago by the boulder of Petty +Bay, in the neighborhood of Culloden. + +A Highland minister of the last century, in describing, for Sir John +Sinclair's Statistical Account, a large sepulchral cairn in his parish, +attributed its formation to an _earthquake_! Earthquakes, in these +latter times, are introduced, like the heathen gods of old, to bring +authors out of difficulties. I do not think, however,--and I have the +authority of the old critic for at least half the opinion,--that either +gods or earthquakes should be resorted to by poets or geologists, +without special occasion: they ought never to be called in except as a +last resort, when there is no way of getting on without them. And I am +afraid there have been few more gratuitous invocations of the earthquake +than on a certain occasion, some five years ago, when it was employed by +the inmate of a north-country manse, at once to account for the removal +of the boulder-stone of Petty Bay, and to annihilate at a blow the +geology of the Free Church editor of the _Witness_. I had briefly stated +in one of my papers, in referring to this curious incident, that the +boulder of the bay had been "borne nearly three hundred yards outwards +into the sea by an enclasping mass of ice, in the course of a single +tide." "Not at all," said the northern clergyman; "the cause assigned is +wholly insufficient to produce such an effect. All the ice ever formed +in the bay would be insufficient to remove such a boulder a distance, +not of three hundred, but even of _three_ yards." The removal of the +stone "_is referrible to an_ EARTHQUAKE!" The country, it would seem, +took a sudden lurch, and the stone tumbled off. It fell athwart the flat +surface of the bay, as a soup tureen sometimes falls athwart the table +of a storm-beset steamer, vastly to the discomfort of the passengers, +and again caught the ground as the land righted. Ingenious, certainly! +It does appear a little wonderful, however, that in a shock so +tremendous nothing should have fallen off except the stone. In an +earthquake on an equally great scale, in the present unsettled state of +society, endowed clergymen would, I am afraid, be in some danger of +falling out of their charges. + +The boulder beside the Auldgrande has not only, like the _Clach +Malloch_, a geologic history of its own, but, what some may deem of +perhaps equal authority, a _mythologic_ history also. The inaccessible +chasm, impervious to the sun, and ever resounding the wild howl of the +tortured water, was too remarkable an object to have escaped the notice +of the old imaginative Celts; and they have married it, as was their +wont, to a set of stories quite as wild as itself. And the boulder, +occupying a nearly central position in its course, just where the dell +is deepest, and narrowest, and blackest, and where the stream bellows +far underground in its wildest combination of tones, marks out the spot +where the more extraordinary incidents have happened, and the stranger +sights have been seen. Immediately beside the stone there is what seems +to be the beginning of a path leading down to the water; but it stops +abruptly at a tree,--the last in the descent,--and the green and dewy +rock sinks beyond for more than a hundred feet, perpendicular as a wall. +It was at the abrupt termination of this path that a Highlander once saw +a beautiful child smiling and stretching out its little hand to him, as +it hung half in air by a slender twig. But he well knew that it was no +child, but an evil spirit, and that if he gave it the assistance which +it seemed to crave, he would be pulled headlong into the chasm, and +never heard of more. And the boulder still bears, it is said, on its +side,--though I failed this evening to detect the mark,--the stamp, +strangely impressed, of the household keys of Balconie.[19] + +The sun had now got as low upon the hill, and the ravine had grown as +dark, as when, so long before, the lady of Balconie took her last walk +along the sides of the Auldgrande; and I struck up for the little alpine +bridge of a few undressed logs, which has been here thrown across the +chasm, at the height of a hundred and thirty feet over the water. As I +pressed through the thick underwood, I startled a strange-looking +apparition in one of the open spaces beside the gulf, where, as shown by +the profusion of plants of _vaccinium_, the blaeberries had greatly +abounded in their season. It was that of an extremely old woman, +cadaverously pale and miserable looking, with dotage glistening in her +inexpressive, rheum-distilling eyes, and attired in a blue cloak, that +had been homely when at its best, and was now exceedingly tattered. She +had been poking with her crutch among the bushes, as if looking for +berries; but my approach had alarmed her; and she stood muttering in +Gaelic what seemed, from the tones and repetition, to be a few +deprecatory sentences. I addressed her in English, and inquired what +could have brought to a place so wild and lonely, one so feeble and +helpless. "Poor object!" she muttered in reply,--"poor object!--very +hungry;" but her scanty English could carry her no further. I slipped +into her hand a small piece of silver, for which she overwhelmed me with +thanks and blessings; and, bringing her to one of the broader avenues, +traversed by a road which leads out of the wood, I saw her fairly +entered upon the path in the right direction, and then, retracing my +steps crossed the log-bridge. The old woman,--little, I should suppose +from her appearance, under ninety,--was I doubt not, one of our +ill-provided Highland paupers, that starve under a law which, while it +has dried up the genial streams of voluntary charity in the country and +presses hard upon the means of the humbler classes, alleviates little, +if at all, the sufferings of the extreme poor. Amid present suffering +and privation there had apparently mingled in her dotage some dream of +early enjoyment,--a dream of the days when she had plucked berries, a +little herd-girl, on the banks of the Auldgrande; and the vision seemed +to have sent her out, far advanced in her second childhood, to poke +among the bushes with her crutch. + +My old friend the minister of Alness,--uninstalled at the time in his +new dwelling,--was residing in a house scarce half a mile from the +chasm, to which he had removed from the parish manse at the Disruption; +and, availing myself of an invitation of long standing, I climbed the +acclivity on which it stands, to pass the night with him. I found, +however, that with part of his family, he had gone to spend a few weeks +beside the mineral springs of Strathpeffer, in the hope of recruiting a +constitution greatly weakened by excessive labor, and that the entire +household at home consisted of but two of the young ladies his +daughters, and their ward, the little Buchubai Hormazdji. + +And who, asks the reader, is this Buchubai Hormazdji? A little Parsi +girl, in her eighth year, the daughter of a Christian convert from the +ancient faith of Zoroaster, who now labors in the Free Church Mission at +Bombay. Buchubai, his only child, was on his conversion, forcibly taken +from him by his relatives, but restored again by a British court of law; +and he had secured her safety by sending her to Europe, a voyage of many +thousand miles, with a lady, the wife of one of our Indian missionaries, +to whom she had become attached, as her second but true mamma, and with +whose sisters I now found her. The little girl, sadly in want of a +companion this evening, was content, for lack of a better, to accept of +me as a playfellow; and she showed me all her rich eastern dresses, and +all her toys, and a very fine emerald, set in the oriental fashion, +which, when she was in full costume, sparkled from her embroidered +tiara. I found her exceedingly like little girls at home, save that she +seemed more than ordinarily observant and intelligent,--a consequence +mayhap, of that early development, physical and mental, which +characterizes her race. She submitted to me, too, when I had got very +much into her confidence, a letter she had written to her papa from +Strathpeffer, which was to be sent him by the next Indian mail. And as +it may serve to show that the style of little girls whose fathers were +fire-worshippers for three thousand years and more differs in no +perceptible quality from the style of little girls whose fathers in +considerably less than three thousand were Pagans, Papists, and +Protestants by turns, besides passing through the various intermediate +forms of belief, I must, after pledging the reader to strict secrecy, +submit it to his perusal:-- + +"My dearest Papa,--I hope you are quite well. I am visiting mamma at +present at Strathpeffer. She is much better now than when she was +travelling. Mamma's sisters give their love to you, and mamma, and Mr. +and Mrs. F. also. They all ask you to pray for them, and they will pray +also. There are a great many at water here for sick people to drink out +of. The smell of the water is not at all nice. I sometimes drink it. +Give my dearest love to Narsion Skishadre, and tell her that I will +write to her.--Dearest papa," etc. + +It was a simple thought, which required no reach of mind whatever to +grasp,--and yet an hour spent with little Buchubai made it tell upon me +more powerfully than ever before,--that there is in reality but one +human nature on the face of the earth. Had I simply read of Buchubai +Hormazdji corresponding with her father Hormazdji Pestonji, and sending +her dear love to her old companion Narsion Skishadre, the names so +specifically different from those which we ourselves employ in +designating our country folk, would probably have led me, through a +false association, to regard the parties to which they attach as +scarcely less specifically different from our country folk themselves. I +suspect we are misled by associations of this kind when we descant on +the peculiarities of race as interposing insurmountable barriers to the +progress of improvement, physical or mental. We overlook, amid the +diversities of form, color, and language, the specific identity of the +human family. The Celt, for instance, wants, it is said, those powers of +sustained application which so remarkably distinguish the Saxon; and so +we agree on the expediency of getting rid of our poor Highlanders by +expatriation as soon as possible, and of converting their country into +sheep-walks and hunting-parks. It would be surely well to have +philosophy enough to remember what, simply through the exercise of a +wise faith, the Christian missionary never forgets, that the +peculiarities of race are not specific and ineradicable, but mere +induced habits and idiosyncracies engrafted on the stock of a common +nature by accident of circumstance or development; and that, as they +have been wrought into the original tissue through the protracted +operation of one set of causes, the operation of another and different +set, wisely and perseveringly directed, could scarce fail to unravel and +work them out again. They form no part of the inherent design of man's +nature, but have merely stuck to it in its transmissive passage +downwards and require to be brushed off. There was a time, some four +thousand years ago, when Celt and Saxon were represented by but one man +and his wife, with their children and their children's wives; and some +sixteen or seventeen centuries earlier all the varieties of the +species,--Caucasian and Negro, Mongolian and Malay,--lay close packed up +in the world's single family. In short, Buchubai's amusing prattle +proved to me this evening no bad commentary on St. Paul's sublime +enunciation to the Athenians, that God has "made of one blood all +nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." I was amused to +find that the little girl, who listened intently as I described to the +young ladies all I had seen and knew of the Auldgrande, had never before +heard of a ghost, and could form no conception of one now. The ladies +explained, described, defined; carefully guarding all they said, +however, by stern disclaimers against the ghost theory altogether, but +apparently to little purpose. At length Buchubai exclaimed, that she now +knew what they meant, and that she herself had seen a great many ghosts +in India. On explanation, however, her ghosts, though quite frightful +enough, turned out to be not at all spiritual: they were things of +common occurrence in the land she had come from,--exposed bodies of the +dead. + +Next morning--as the white clouds and thin mist-streaks of the preceding +day had fairly foretold--was close and wet; and the long trail of vapor +which rises from the chasm of the Auldgrande in such weather, and is +known to the people of the neighborhood as the "smoke of the lady's +baking," hung, snake-like, over the river. About two o'clock the rain +ceased, hesitatingly and doubtfully, however, as if it did not quite +know its own mind; and there arose no breeze to shake the dank grass, or +to dissipate the thin mist-wreath that continued to float over the river +under a sky of deep gray. But the ladies, with Buchubai, impatient to +join their friends at Strathpeffer, determined on journeying +notwithstanding; and, availing myself of their company and their +vehicle, I travelled on with them to Dingwall, where we parted. I had +purposed exploring the gray dingy sandstones and fetid breccias +developed along the shores on the northern side of the bay, about two +miles from the town, and on the sloping acclivities between the +mansion-houses of Tulloch and Fowlis; but the day was still unfavorable, +and the sections seemed untemptingly indifferent; besides, I could +entertain no doubt that the dingy beds here are identical in place with +those of Cadboll on the coast of Easter Ross, which they closely +resemble, and which alternate with the lower ichthyolitic beds of the +Old Red Sandstone; and so, for the present at least, I gave up my +intention of exploring them. + +In the evening, the sun, far gone down towards its place of setting, +burst forth in great beauty; and, under the influence of a kindly breeze +from the west, just strong enough to shake the wet leaves, the sky flung +off its thick mantle of gray. I sauntered out along the high-road, in +the direction of my old haunts at Conon-side, with, however, no +intention of walking so far. But the reaches of the river, a little in +flood, shone temptingly through the dank foliage, and the cottages under +the Conon woods glittered clear on their sweeping hill-side, "looking +cheerily out" into the landscape; and so I wandered on and on, over the +bridge, and along the river, and through the pleasure grounds of +Conon-house, till I found myself in the old solitary burying-ground +beside the Conon, which, when last in this part of the country, I was +prevented from visiting by the swollen waters. The rich yellow light +streamed through the interstices of the tall hedge of forest-trees that +encircles the eminence, once an island, and fell in fantastic patches on +the gray tombstone and the graves. The ruinous little chapel in the +corner, whose walls a quarter of a century before I had distinctly +traced, had sunk into a green mound; and there remained over the sward +but the arch-stone of a Gothic window, with a portion of the moulded +transom attached, to indicate the character and style of the vanished +building. The old dial-stone, with the wasted gnomon, has also +disappeared; and the few bright-colored _throch-stanes_, raw from the +chisel, that had been added of late years to the group of older +standing, did not quite make up for what time in the same period had +withdrawn. One of the newer inscriptions, however, recorded a curious +fact. When I had resided in this part of the country so long before, +there was an aged couple in the neighborhood, who had lived together, it +was said, as man and wife, for more than sixty years: and now, here was +their tombstone and epitaph. They had lived on long after my departure; +and when, as the seasons passed, men and women whose births and baptisms +had taken place since their wedding-day were falling around them well +stricken in years, death seemed to have forgotten _them_; and when he +came at last, their united ages made up well nigh two centuries. The +wife had seen her ninety-sixth and the husband his hundred and second +birthday. It does not transcend the skill of the actuary to say how many +thousand women must die under ninety-six for every one that reaches it, +and how many tens of thousands of men must die under a hundred and two +for every man who attains to an age so extraordinary; but he would +require to get beyond his tables in order to reckon up the chances +against the woman destined to attain to ninety-six being courted and +married in early life by the man born to attain to a hundred and two. + +After enjoying a magnificent sunset on the banks of the Conon, just +where the scenery, exquisite throughout, is most delightful, I returned +through the woods, and spent half an hour by the way in the cottage of a +kindly-hearted woman, now considerably advanced in years, whom I had +known, when she was in middle life, as the wife of one of the Conon-side +hinds, and who not unfrequently, when I was toiling at the mallet in the +burning sun, hot and thirsty, and rather loosely knit for my work, had +brought me--all she had to offer at the time--a draught of fresh whey. +At first she seemed to have wholly forgotten both her kindness and the +object of it. She well remembered my master, and another Cromarty man +who had been grievously injured, when undermining an old building, by +the sudden fall of the erection; but she could bethink her of no third +Cromarty man whatever. "Eh, sirs!" she at length exclaimed, "I daresay +ye'll be just the sma' prentice laddie. Weel, what will young folk no +come out o'? They were amaist a' stout big men at the wark except +yoursel'; an' you're now stouter and bigger than maist o' them. Eh, +sirs!--an' are ye still a mason?" "No; I have not wrought as a mason for +the last fourteen years; but I have to work hard enough for all that." +"Weel, weel, it's our appointed lot; an' if we have but health an' +strength, an' the wark to do, why should we repine?" Once fairly entered +on our talk together, we gossipped on till the night fell, giving and +receiving information regarding our old acquaintances of a quarter of a +century before; of whom we found that no inconsiderable proportion had +already sunk in the stream in which eventually we must all disappear. +And then, taking leave of the kindly old woman, I walked on in the dark +to Dingwall, where I spent the night. I could fain have called by the +way on my old friend and brother-workman, Mr. Urquhart,--of a very +numerous party of mechanics employed at Conon-side in the year 1821 the +only individual now resident in this part of the country; but the +lateness of the hour forbade. Next morning I returned by the Conon road, +as far as the noble old bridge which strides across the stream at the +village, and which has done so much to banish the water-wraith from the +fords; and then striking off to the right, I crossed, by a path +comparatively little frequented, the insulated group of hills which +separates the valley of the Conon from that of the Peffer. The day was +mild and pleasant, and the atmosphere clear; but the higher hills again +exhibited their ominous belts of vapor, and there had been a slight +frost during the night,--at this autumnal season the almost certain +precursor of rain. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + The Great Conglomerate--Its Undulatory and Rectilinear + Members--Knock Farril and its Vitrified Fort--The old Highlanders + an observant race--The Vein of Silver--Summit of Knock Farril--Mode + of accounting for the Luxuriance of Herbage in the ancient Scottish + Fortalices--The green Graves of Culloden--Theories respecting the + Vitrification of the Hill-forts--Combined Theories of Williams and + Mackenzie probably give the correct account--The Author's + Explanation--Transformations of Fused Rocks--Strathpeffer--The + Spa--Permanent Odoriferous Qualities of an ancient Sea-bottom + converted into Rock--Mineral Springs of the Spa--Infusion of the + powdered rock a substitute--Belemnite Water--The lively young + Lady's Comments--A befogged Country seen from a + hill-top--Ben-Wevis--Journey to Evanton--A Geologist's + Night-mare--The Route Home--Ruins of Craighouse--Incompatibility of + Tea and Ghosts--End of the Tour. + + +I was once more on the Great Conglomerate,--here, as elsewhere, a +picturesque, boldly-featured deposit, traversed by narrow, mural-sided +valleys, and tempested by bluff abrupt eminences. Its hills are greatly +less confluent than those of most of the other sedimentary formations of +Scotland; and their insulated summits, recommended by their steep sides +and limited areas to the old savage Vaubans of the Highlands, furnished, +ere the historic eras began, sites for not a few of the ancient +hill-forts of the country. The vitrified fort of Craig Phadrig, of the +Ord Hill of Kessock, and of Knock Farril,--two of the number, the first +and last, being the most celebrated erections of their kind in the north +of Scotland,--were all formed on hills of the Great Conglomerate. The +Conglomerate exists here as a sort of miniature Highlands, set down at +the northern side of a large angular bay of Palaeozoic rock, which +indents the _true_ Highlands of the country, and which exhibits in its +central area a prolongation of the long moory ridge of the Black Isle, +formed, as I have already had occasion to remark, of an _upper_ deposit +of the same lower division of the Old Red,--a deposit as noticeable for +affecting a confluent, rectilinear character in its elevations, as the +Conglomerate is remarkable for exhibiting a detached and undulatory one. +Exactly the same features are presented by the same deposits in the +neighborhood of Inverness; the _undulatory_ Conglomerate composing, to +the north and west of the town, the picturesque wavy ridge comprising +the twin-eminences of Munlochy Bay, the Ord Hill of Kessock, Craig +Phadrig, and the fir-covered hill beyond in the line of the Great +Valley; while on the south and east the _rectilinear_ ichthyolitic +member of the system, with the arenaceous beds that lie over it, form +the continuous straight-lined ridge which runs on from beyond the moor +of the Leys to beyond the moor of Culloden. There is a pretty little +loch in this dwarf Highlands of the Brahan district, into which the old +Celtic prophet Kenneth Ore, when, like Prospero, he relinquished his +art, buried "deep beyond plummet sound" the magic stone in which he was +wont to see the distant and the future. And with the loch it contains a +narrow, hermit-like dell, bearing but a single row of fields, and these +of small size, along its flat bottom, and whose steep gray sides of +rustic Conglomerate resemble Cyclopean walls. It, besides, includes +among its hills the steep hill of Knock Farril, which, rising bluff and +bold immediately over the southern slopes of Strathpeffer, adds so +greatly to the beauty of the valley, and bears atop perhaps the finest +specimen of the vitrified fort in Scotland; and the bold frontage of +cliff presented by the group to the west, over the pleasure grounds of +Brahan, is, though on no very large scale, one of the most +characteristic of the Conglomerate formation which can be seen +anywhere. It is formed of exactly such cliffs as the landscape gardener +would make if he could,--cliffs with their rude prominent pebbles +breaking the light over every square foot of surface, and furnishing +footing, by their innumerable projections, to many a green tuft of moss, +and many a sweet little flower. Some of the masses, too, that have +rolled down from the precipices among the Brahan woods far below, and +stand up, like the ruins of cottages, amid the trees, are of singular +beauty,--worth all the imitation-ruins ever erected, and obnoxious to +none of the disparaging associations which the mere show and +make-believe of the artificial are sure always to awaken. + +Whatever exhibited an aspect in any degree extraordinary was sure to +attract the notice of the old Highlanders,--an acutely observant race, +however slightly developed their reflective powers; and the great +natural objects which excited their attention we always find associated +with some traditionary story. It is said that in the Conglomerate cliffs +above Brahan, a retainer of the Mackenzie, one of the smiths of the +tribe, discovered a rich vein of silver, which he wrought by stealth, +until he had filled one of the apartments of his cottage with bars and +ingots. But the treasure, it is added, was betrayed by his own +unfortunate vanity, to his chief, who hanged him in order to serve +himself his heir; and no one since his death has proved ingenious enough +to convert the rude rock into silver. Years had, I found, wrought their +changes amid the miniature Highlands of the Conglomerate. The sapplings +of the straggling wood on the banks of Loch Ousy,--the pleasant little +lake, or lochan rather, of this upland region,--that I remembered having +seen scarce taller than myself, had shot into vigorous treehood; and the +steep slopes of Knock Farril, which I had left covered with their dark +screen of pine, were now thickly mottled over with half-decayed stumps, +and bore that peculiarly barren aspect which tracts cleared of their +wood so frequently assume in their transition state, when the plants +that flourished in the shade have died out in consequence of the +exposure, and plants that love the open air and the unbroken sunshine +have not yet sprung up in their place. I found the southern acclivities +of the hill covered with scattered masses of vitrified stone, that had +fallen from the fortalice atop; and would recommend to the collector in +quest of a characteristic specimen, that instead of laboring, to the +general detriment of the pile, in detaching one from the walls above, he +should set himself to seek one here. The blocks, uninjured by the +hammer, exhibit, in most cases, the angular character of the original +fragments better than those forcibly detached from the mass, and +preserve in fine keeping those hollower interstices which were but +partially filled with the molten matter, and which, when shattered by a +blow, break through and lose their character. + +One may spend an hour very agreeably on the green summit of Knock +Farril. And at almost all seasons of the year a green summit it +is,--greener considerably than any other hill-top in this part of the +country. The more succulent grasses spring up rich and strong within the +walls, here and there roughened by tufts of nettles, tall and rank, and +somewhat perilous of approach,--witnesses, say the botanists, that man +had once a dwelling in the immediate neighborhood. The green luxuriance +which characterizes so many of the more ancient fortalices of Scotland +seems satisfactorily accounted for by Dr. Fleming, in his "Zoology of +the Bass." "The summits and sides of those hills which were occupied by +our ancestors as _hill-forts_," says the naturalist, "usually exhibit a +far richer herbage than corresponding heights in the neighborhood with +the mineral soil derived from the same source. It is to be kept in view, +that these positions of strength were at the same time occupied as +_hill-folds_, into which, during the threatened or actual invasion of +the district by a hostile tribe, the cattle were driven, especially +during the night, as to places of safety, and sent out to pasture in the +neighborhood during the day. And the droppings of these collected herds +would, as takes place in analogous cases at present, speedily improve +the soil to such an extent as to induce a permanent fertility." The +further instance adduced by the Doctor, in showing through what +protracted periods causes transitory in themselves may remain palpably +influential in their effects, is curiously suggestive of the old +metaphysical idea, that as every effect has its cause, "recurring from +cause to cause up to the abyss of eternity, so every cause has also its +effects, linked forward in succession to the end of time." On the bleak +moor of Culloden the graves of the slain still exist as patches of green +sward, surrounded by a brown groundwork of stunted heather. The animal +matter,--once the nerves, muscles, and sinews of brave men,--which +originated the change, must have been wholly dissipated ages ago. But +the effect once produced has so decidedly maintained itself, that it +remains not less distinctly stamped upon the heath in the present day +than it could have been in the middle of the last century, only a few +years after the battle had been stricken. + +The vitrification of the rampart which on every side incloses the grassy +area has been more variously, but less satisfactorily, accounted for +than the green luxuriance within. It was held by Pennant to be an effect +of volcanic fire, and that the walls of this and all our other vitrified +strongholds are simply the crater-rims of extinct volcanoes,--a +hypothesis wholly as untenable in reference to the hill-forts as to the +lime-kilns of the country: the vitrified forts are as little volcanic as +the vitrified kilns. Williams, the author of the "Mineral Kingdom," and +one of our earlier British geologists, after deciding, on data which his +peculiar pursuits enabled him to collect and weigh, that they are _not_ +volcanic, broached the theory, still prevalent, as their name testifies, +that they are artificial structures, in which vitrescency was designedly +induced, in order to cement into solid masses accumulations of loose +materials. Lord Woodhouselee advocated an opposite view. Resting on the +fact that the vitrification is but of partial occurrence, be held that +it had been produced, not of design by the builders of the forts, but in +the process of their demolition by a besieging enemy, who, finding, as +he premised, a large portion of the ramparts composed of wood, had +succeeded in setting them on fire. This hypothesis, however, seems quite +as untenable as that of Pennant. Fires not unfrequently occur in cities, +among crowded groups of houses, where walls of stone are surrounded by a +much greater profusion of dry woodwork than could possibly have entered +into the composition of the ramparts of a hill-fort; but who ever saw, +after a city fire, masses of wall from eight to ten feet in thickness +fused throughout? The sandstone columns of the aisles of the Old +Greyfriars in Edinburgh, surrounded by the woodwork of the galleries, +the flooring, the seating, and the roof, were wasted, during the fire +which destroyed the pile, into mere skeletons of their former selves; +but though originally not more than three feet in diameter, they +exhibited no marks of vitrescency. And it does not seem in the least +probable that the stonework of the Knock Farril rampart could, if +surrounded by wood at all, have been surrounded by an amount equally +great, in proportion to its mass, as that which enveloped the +aisle-columns of the Old Greyfriars. + +The late Sir George Mackenzie of Coul adopted yet a fourth view. He +held that the vitrification is simply an effect of the ancient +beacon-fires kindled to warn the country of an invading enemy. But how +account, on this hypothesis, for ramparts continuous, as in the case of +Knock Farril, all round the hill? A powerful fire long kept up might +well fuse a heap of loose stones into a solid mass; the bonfire lighted +on the summit of Arthur Seat in 1842, to welcome the Queen on her first +visit to Scotland, particularly fused numerous detached fragments of +basalt, and imparted, in some spots to the depth of about half an inch, +a vesicular structure to the solid rock beneath. But no fire, however +powerful, could have constructed a rampart running without break for +several hundred feet round an insulated hill-top. "To be satisfied," +said Sir George, "of the reason why the signal-fires should be kindled +on or beside a heap of stones, we have only to imagine a gale of wind to +have arisen when a fire was kindled on the bare ground. The fuel would +be blown about and dispersed, to the great annoyance of those who +attended. The plan for obviating the inconvenience thus occasioned which +would occur most naturally and readily would be to raise a heap of +stones, on either side of which the fire might be placed to windward; +and to account for the vitrification appearing all round the area, it is +only necessary to allow the inhabitants of the country to have had a +system of signals. A fire at one end might denote something different +from a fire at the other, or in some intermediate part. On some +occasions two or more fires might be necessary, and sometimes a fire +along the whole line. It cannot be doubted," he adds, "that the rampart +was originally formed with as much regularity as the nature of the +materials would allow, both in order to render it more durable, and to +make it serve the purposes of defence." This, I am afraid, is still +very unsatisfactory. A fire lighted along the entire line of a wall +inclosing nearly an acre of area could not be other than a very +attenuated, wire-drawn line of fire indeed, and could never possess +strength enough to melt the ponderous mass of rampart beneath, as if it +had been formed of wax or resin. A thousand loads of wood piled in a +ring round the summit of Knock Farril, and set at once into a blaze, +would wholly fail to affect the broad rampart below; and long ere even a +thousand, or half a thousand, loads could have been cut down, collected, +and fired, an invading enemy would have found time enough to moor his +fleet and land his forces, and possess himself of the lower country. +Again, the unbroken continuity of the vitrified line militates against +the signal-system theory. Fire trod so closely upon the heels of fire, +that the vitrescency induced by the one fire impinged on and mingled +with the vitrescency induced by the others beside it. There is no other +mode of accounting for the continuity of the fusion; and how could +definite meanings possibly be attached to the various parts of a line so +minutely graduated, that the centre of the fire kindled on any one +graduation could be scarce ten feet apart from the centre of the fire +kindled on any of its two neighboring graduations? Even by day, the +exact compartment which a fire occupied could not be distinguished, at +the distance of half a mile, from its neighboring compartments, and not +at all by night, at any distance, from even the compartments farthest +removed from it. Who, for instance, at the distance of a dozen miles or +so, could tell whether the flame that shone out in the darkness, when +all other objects around it were invisible, was kindled on the east or +west end of an eminence little more than a hundred yards in length? Nay, +who could determine,--for such is the requirement of the +hypothesis,--whether it rose from a compartment of the summit a hundred +feet distant from its west or east end, or from a compartment merely +ninety or a hundred and ten feet distant from it? The supposed signal +system, added to the mere beacon hypothesis, is palpably untenable. + +The theory of Williams, however, which is, I am inclined to think, the +true one in the main, seems capable of being considerably modified and +improved by the hypothesis of Sir George. The hill-fort,--palpably the +most primitive form of fortalice or stronghold originated in a +mountainous country,--seems to constitute man's first essay towards +neutralizing, by the art of fortification, the advantages of superior +force on the side of an assailing enemy. It was found, on the discovery +of New Zealand, that the savage inhabitants had already learned to erect +exactly such hill-forts amid the fastnesses of that country as those +which were erected two thousand years earlier by the Scottish aborigines +amid the fastnesses of our own. Nothing seems more probable, therefore, +than that the forts of eminences such as Craig Phadrig and Knock Farril, +originally mere inclosures of loose, uncemented stones, may belong to a +period not less ancient than that of the first barbarous wars of +Scotland, when, though tribe battled with tribe in fierce warfare, like +the red men of the West with their brethren ere the European had landed +on their shores, navigation was yet in so immature a state in Northern +Europe as to secure to them an exemption from foreign invasion. In an +after age, however, when the roving Vikings had become formidable, many +of the eminences originally selected, from _their inaccessibility_, as +sites for hill-forts, would come to be chosen, from _their prominence in +the landscape_, as stations for beacon-fires. And of course the +previously erected ramparts, higher always than the inclosed areas, +would furnish on such hills the conspicuous points from which the fires +could be best seen. Let us suppose, then, that the rampart-crested +eminence of Knock Farril, seen on every side for many miles, has become +in the age of northern invasion one of the beacon-posts of the district, +and that large fires, abundantly supplied with fuel by the woods of a +forest-covered country, and blown at times into intense heat by the +strong winds so frequent in that upper stratum of air into which the +summit penetrates, have been kindled some six or eight times on some +prominent point of the rampart, raised, mayhap, many centuries before. +At first the heat has failed to tell on the stubborn quartz and feldspar +which forms the preponderating material of the gneisses, granites, +quartz rocks, and coarse conglomerate sandstones on which it has been +brought to operate; but each fire throws down into the interstices a +considerable amount of the fixed salt of the wood, till at length the +heap has become charged with a strong flux; and then one powerful fire +more, fanned to a white heat by a keen, dry breeze, reduces the whole +into a semi-fluid mass. The same effects have been produced on the +materials of the rampart by the beacon-fires and the alkali, that were +produced, according to Pliny, by the fires and the soda of the +Phoenician merchants storm-bound on the sands of the river Belus. But +the state of civilization in Scotland at the time is not such as to +permit of the discovery being followed up by similar results. The +semi-savage guardians of the beacon wonder at the _accident_, as they +well may; but those happy accidents in which the higher order of +discoveries originate occur in only the ages of cultivated minds; and so +they do not acquire from it the art of manufacturing glass. It could not +fail being perceived, however, by intellects at all human, that the +consolidation which the fires of one week, or month, or year, as the +case happened, had effected on one portion of the wall, might be +produced by the fires of another week, or month, or year, on another +portion of it; that, in short, a loose incoherent rampart, easy of +demolition, might be converted, through the newly-discovered process, +into a rampart as solid and indestructible as the rock on which it +rested. And so, in course of time, simply by shifting the beacon-fires, +and bringing them to bear in succession on every part of the wall, Knock +Farril, with many a similar eminence in the country, comes to exhibit +its completely vitrified fort where there had been but a loosely-piled +hill-fort before. It in no degree militates against this compound +theory,--borrowed in part from Williams and in part from Sir +George,--that there are detached vitrified masses to be found on +eminences evidently never occupied by hill-forts; or that there are +hill-forts on other eminences only partially fused, or hill-forts on +many of the less commanding sites that bear about them no marks of fire +at all. Nothing can be more probable than that in the first class of +cases we have eminences that had been selected as beacon-stations, which +had not previously been occupied by hill-forts; and in the last, +eminences that had been occupied by hill-forts which, from their want of +prominence in the general landscape, had not been selected as +beacon-stations. And in the intermediate class of cases we have probably +ramparts that were only partially vitrified, because some want of fuel +in the neighborhood had starved the customary fires, or because fires +had to be less frequently kindled upon them than on the more important +stations; or, finally, because these hill-forts, from some disadvantage +of situation, were no longer used as places of strength, and so the +beacon-keepers had no motive to attempt consolidating them throughout by +the piecemeal application of the vitrifying agent. But the old Highland +mode of accounting for the present appearance of Knock Farril and its +vitrified remains is perhaps, after all, quite as good in its way as any +of the modes suggested by the philosophers.[20] + +I spent some time, agreeably enough, beside the rude rampart of Knock +Farril, in marking the various appearances exhibited by the fused and +semi-fused materials of which it is composed,--the granites, gneisses, +mica-schists, hornblendes, clay-slates, and red sandstones of the +locality. One piece of rock, containing much lime, I found resolved into +a yellow opaque substance, not unlike the coarse earthenware used in the +making of ginger-beer bottles; but though it had been so completely +molten that it had dropped into a hollow beneath in long viscid trails, +it did not contain a single air-vesicle; while another specimen, +apparently a piece of fused mica-schist, was so filled with air-cells, +that the dividing partitions were scarcely the tenth of a line in +thickness. I found bits of schistose gneiss resolved into green glass; +the Old Red Sandstone basis of the Conglomerate, which forms the hill, +into a semi-metallic scoria, like that of an iron-smelter's furnace; +mica into a gray, waxy-looking stone, that scratched glass; and pure +white quartz into porcellanic trails of white, that ran in one instance +along the face of a darker-colored rock below, like streaks of cream +along the sides of a burnt china jug. In one mass of pale large-grained +granite I found that the feldspar, though it had acquired a vitreous +gloss on the surface, still retained its peculiar rhomboidal cleavage; +while the less stubborn quartz around it had become scarce less +vesicular and light than a piece of pumice. On some of the other masses +there was impressed, as if by a seal, the stamp of pieces of charcoal; +and so sharply was the impression retained, that I could detect on the +vitreous surface the mark of the yearly growths, and even of the +medullary rays, of the wood. In breaking open some of the others, I +detected fragments of the charcoal itself, which, hermetically locked up +in the rock, had retained all its original carbon. These last reminded +me of specimens not unfrequent among the trap-rocks of the Carboniferous +and Oolitic systems. From an intrusive overlying wacke in the +neighborhood of Linlithgow I have derived for my collection pieces of +carbonized wood in so complete a state of keeping, that under the +microscope they exhibit unbroken all the characteristic reticulations of +the coniferae of the Coal Measures. + +I descended the hill, and, after joining my friends at +Strathpeffer,--Buchubai Hormazdji among the rest,--visited the Spa, in +the company of my old friend the minister of Alness. The thorough +identity of the powerful effluvium that fills the pump-room with that of +a muddy sea-bottom laid bare in warm weather by the tide, is to the +dweller on the sea-coast very striking. It _is_ identity,--not mere +resemblance. In most cases the organic substances undergo great changes +in the bowels of the earth. The animal matter of the Caithness +ichthyolites exists, for instance, as a hard, black, insoluble bitumen, +which I have used oftener than once as sealing-wax; the vegetable mould +of the Coal Measures has been converted into a fire-clay, so altered in +the organic pabulum, animal and vegetable, whence it derived its +fertility, that, even when laid open for years to the meliorating +effects of the weather and the visits of the winged seeds, it will not +be found bearing a single spike or leaf of green. But here, in smell, at +least, that ancient mud, swum over by the Diplopterus and the +Diplacanthus, and in which the Coccosteus and Pterichthys burrowed, has +undergone no change. The soft ooze has become solid rock, but its +odoriferous qualities have remained unaltered. I next visited an +excavation a few hundred yards on the upper side of the pump-room, in +which the gray fetid breccia of the Strath has been quarried for +dyke-building, and examined the rock with some degree of care, without, +however, detecting in it a single plate or scale. Lying over that +Conglomerate member of the system which, rising high in the Knock Farril +range, forms the southern boundary of the valley, it occupies the place +of the lower ichthyolitic bed, so rich in organisms in various other +parts of the country; but here the bed, after it had been deposited in +thin horizontal laminae, and had hardened into stone, seems to have been +broken up, by some violent movement, into minute sharp-edged fragments, +that, without wear or attrition, were again consolidated into the +breccia which it now forms. And its ichthyolites, if not previously +absorbed, were probably destroyed in the convulsion. Detached scales and +spines, however, if carefully sought for in the various openings of the +valley, might still be found in the original laminae of the fragments. +They must have been amazingly abundant in it once; for so largely +saturated is the rock with the organic matter into which they have been +resolved, that, when struck by the hammer, the impalpable dust set loose +sensibly affects the organs of taste, and appeals very strongly to those +of smell. It is through this saturated rock that the mineral springs +take their course. Even the surface-waters of the valley, as they pass +over it contract in a perceptible degree its peculiar taste and odor. +With a little more time to spare, I would fain have made this breccia of +the Old Red the subject of a few simple experiments. I would have ground +it into powder, and tried upon it the effect both of cold and hot +infusion. Portions of the water are sometimes carried in casks and +bottles, for the use of invalids, to a considerable distance; but it is +quite possible that a little of the _rock_, to which the water owes its +qualities, might, when treated in this way, have all the effects of a +considerable quantity of the _spring_. It might be of some interest, +too, to ascertain its qualities when crushed, as a soil, or its effect +on other soils; whether, for instance, like the old sterile soils of the +Carboniferous period, it has lost, through its rock-change, the +fertilizing properties which it once possessed; or whether it still +retains them, like some of the coprolitic beds of the Oolite and +Greensand, and might not, in consequence, be employed as a manure. A +course of such experiments could scarce fail to furnish with agreeable +occupation some of the numerous annual visitants of the Spa, who have to +linger long, with but little to engage them, waiting for what, if it +once fairly leave a man, returns slowly, when it returns at all. + +In mentioning at the dinner-table of my friend my scheme of infusing +rock in order to produce Spa water, I referred to the circumstance that +the Belemnite of our Liasic deposits, when ground into powder, imparts +to boiling water a peculiar taste and smell, and that the infusion, +taken in very small quantities, sensibly affects both palate and +stomach. And I suggested that Belemnite water, deemed sovereign of old, +when the Belemnite was regarded as a thunderbolt, in the cure of +bewitched cattle, might be in reality medicinal, and that the ancient +superstition might thus embody, as ancient superstitions not +unfrequently do, a nucleus of fact. The charm, I said, might amount to +no more than simply the administration of a medicine to sick cattle, +that did harm in no case, and good at times. The lively comment of one +of the young ladies on the remark amused us all. If an infusion of stone +had cured, in the last age, cattle that were bewitched, the Strathpeffer +water, she argued, which was, it seems, but an infusion of stone, might +cure cattle that were sick now; and so, though the biped patients of +the Strath could scarce fail to decrease when they knew that its infused +stone contained but the strainings of old mud, and the juices of dead +unsalted fish, it was gratifying to think that the poor Spa might still +continue to retain its patients, though of a lower order. The pump-room +would be converted into a rustic, straw-thatched shed, to which long +trains of sick cattle, affected by weak nerves and dyspepsia, would come +streaming along the roads every morning and evening, to drink and gather +strength. + +The following morning was wet and lowering, and a flat ceiling of gray +cloud stretched across the valley, from the summit of the Knock Farril +ridge of hills on the one side, to the lower flanks of Ben-Wevis on the +other. I had purposed ascending this latter mountain,--the giant of the +north-eastern coast, and one of the loftiest of our second-class +Scottish hills anywhere,--to ascertain the extreme upper line at which +travelled boulders occur in this part of the country. But it was no +morning for wading knee-deep through the trackless heather; and after +waiting on, in the hope the weather might clear up, watching at a window +the poorer invalids at the Spa, as they dragged themselves through the +rain to the water, I lost patience, and sallied out, beplaided and +umbrellaed, to see from the top of Knock Farril how the country looked +in a fog. At first, however, I saw much fog, but little country; but as +the day wore on, the flat mist-ceiling rose together, till it rested on +but the distant hills, and the more prominent features of the landscape +began to stand out amid the more general gray, like the stronger lines +and masses in a half-finished drawing, boldly dashed off in the neutral +tint of the artist. The portions of the prospect generically distinct +are, notwithstanding its great extent and variety, but few; and the +partial veil of haze, by glazing down its distracting multiplicity of +minor points, served to bring them out all the more distinctly. There +is, first stretching far in a southern and eastern direction along the +landscape, the rectilinear ridge of the Black Isle,--not quite the sort +of line a painter would introduce into a composition, but true to +geologic character. More in the foreground, in the same direction, there +spreads a troubled cockling sea of the Great Conglomerate. Turning to +the north and west, the deep valley of Strathpeffer, with its expanse of +rich level fields, and in the midst its old baronial castle, surrounded +by coeval trees of vast bulk, lies so immediately at the foot of the +eminence, that I could hear in the calm the rush of the little stream, +swollen to thrice its usual bulk by the rains of the night. Beyond rose +the thick-set Ben-Wevis,--a true gneiss mountain, with breadth enough of +shoulders, and amplitude enough of base, to serve a mountain thrice as +tall, but which, like all its cogeners of this ancient formation, was +arrested in its second stage of growth, so that many of the slimmer +granitic and porphyritic hills of the country look down upon it, as +Agamemnon, according to Homer, looked down upon Ulysses. + + "Broad is his breast, his shoulders larger spread, + Though great Atrides overtops his head." + +All around, as if topling, wave-like, over the outer edges of the +comparatively flat area of Palaeozoic rock which composes the middle +ground of the landscape, rose a multitude of primary hill-peaks, barely +discernible in the haze; while the long withdrawing Dingwall Frith, +stretching on towards the open sea for full twenty miles, and flanked on +either side by ridges of sandstone, but guarded at the opening by two +squat granitic columns, completed the prospect, by adding to its last +great feature. All was gloomy and chill; and as I turned me down the +descent, the thick wetting drizzle again came on; and the mist-wreaths, +after creeping upwards along the hill-side, began again to creep down. +When I had first visited the valley, more than a quarter of a century +before, it was on a hot breathless day of early summer, in which, though +the trees in fresh leaf seemed drooping in the sunshine, and the +succulent luxuriance of the fields lay aslant, half-prostrated by the +fierce heat, the rich blue of Ben-Wevis, far above, was thickly streaked +with snow, on which it was luxury even to look. It gave one iced +fancies, wherewithal to slake, amid the bright glow of summer, the +thirst in the mind. The recollection came strongly upon me, as the fog +from the hill-top closed dark behind, like that sung by the old blind +Englishman, which + + "O'er the marish glides, +And gathers ground fast at the lab'rer's heel, +Homeward returning." + +But the contrast had nothing sad in it; and it was pleasant to feel that +it had not. I had resigned many a baseless hope and many an idle desire +since I had spent a vacant day amid the sunshine, now gazing on the +broad placid features of the snow-streaked mountain; and now sauntering +under the tall ancient woods, or along the heath-covered slopes of the +valley; but in relation to never-tiring, inexhaustible nature, the heart +was no fresher at that time than it was now. I had grown no older in my +feelings or in my capacity of enjoyment; and what then was there to +regret? + +I rode down the Strath in an omnibus which plies between the Spa and +Dingwall, and then walked on to the village of Evanton, which I reached +about an hour after nightfall, somewhat in the circumstances of the +"damp stranger," who gave Beau Brummel the cold. There were, however, no +Beau Brummels in the quiet village inn in which I passed the night, and +so the effects of the damp were wholly confined to myself. I was soundly +pummelled during the night by a frightful female, who first assumed the +appearance of the miserable pauper woman whom I had seen beside the +Auldgrande, and then became the Lady of Balconie; and, though +sufficiently indignant, and much inclined to resist, I could stir +neither hand nor foot, but lay passively on my back, jambed fast behind +the huge gneiss boulder and the edge of the gulf. And yet, by a strange +duality of perception, I was conscious all the while that, having got +wet on the previous day, I was now suffering from an attack of +nightmare: and held that it would be no very serious matter even should +the lady tumble me into the gulf, seeing that all would be well again +when I awoke in the morning. Dreams of this character, in which +consciousness bears reference at once to the fictitious events of the +vision and the real circumstances of the sleeper, must occupy, I am +inclined to think, very little time,--single moments, mayhap, poised +midway between the sleeping and waking state. Next day (Sunday) I +attended the Free Church in the parish, where I found a numerous and +attentive congregation,--descendants, in large part, of the old devout +Munroes of Ferindonald,--and heard a good solid discourse. And on the +following morning I crossed the sea at what is known as the Fowlis +Ferry, to explore, on my homeward route, the rocks laid bare along the +shore in the upper reaches of the Frith. + +I found but little by the way: black patches of bitumen in the sandstone +of one of the beds, with a bed of stratified clay, inclosing nodules, in +which, however, I succeeded in detecting nothing organic; and a few +fragments of clay-slate locked up in the Red Sandstone, sharp and +unworn at their edges, as if derived from no great distance, though +there be now no clay-slate in the eastern half of Ross; but though the +rocks here belong evidently to the ichthyolitic member of the Old Red, +not a single fish, not a "nibble" even, repaid the patient search of +half a day. I, however, passed some time agreeably enough among the +ruins of Craighouse. When I had last seen, many years before, this old +castle,[21] the upper stories were accessible; but they were now no +longer so. Time, and the little herdboys who occasionally shelter in its +vaults, had been busy in the interval; and, by breaking off a few +projecting corners by which the climber had held, and by effacing a few +notches into which he had thrust his toe-points, they had rendered what +had been merely difficult impracticable. I remarked that the huge +kitchen chimney of the building,--a deep hollow recess which stretches +across the entire gable, and in which, it is said, two thrashers once +plied the flail for a whole winter,--bore less of the stain of recent +smoke than it used to exhibit twenty years before; and inferred that +there would be fewer wraith-lights seen from the castle at nights than +in those days of _evil spirits_ and illicit stills, when the cottars in +the neighborhood sent more smuggled whiskey to market than any equal +number of the inhabitants of almost any other district in the north. It +has been long alleged that there existed a close connection between the +more ghostly spirits of the country and its distilled ones. "How do you +account," said a north country minister of the last age (the late Rev. +Mr. M'Bean of Alves) to a sagacious old elder of his Session, "for the +almost total disappearance of the ghosts and fairies that used to be so +common in your young days?" "Tak my word for 't, minister," replied the +shrewd old man, "it's a' owing to the _tea_; when the _tea_ cam in, the +ghaists an' fairies gaed out. Weel do I mind when at a' our neeborly +meetings,--bridals, christenings, lyke-wakes, an' the like,--we +entertained ane anither wi' rich nappy ale; an' whan the verra dowiest +o' us used to get warm i' the face, an' a little confused in the head, +an' weel fit to see amaist onything whan on the muirs on our way hame. +But the tea has put out the nappy; an' I have remarked, that by losing +the nappy we lost baith ghaists an' fairies." + +Quitting the ruin, I walked on along the shore, tracing the sandstone as +I went, as it rises from lower to higher beds; and where it ceases to +crop out at the surface, and gravel and the red boulder-clays take the +place of rock, I struck up the hill, and, traversing the parishes of +Resolis and Cromarty, got home early in the evening. I had seen and done +scarcely half what I had intended seeing or doing: alas, that in +reference to every walk which I have yet attempted to tread, this +special statement should be so invariably true to fact!--alas, that all +my full purposes, should be coupled with but half realizations! But I +had at least the satisfaction, that though I had accomplished little, I +had enjoyed much; and it is something, though not all, nor nearly all, +that, since time is passing, it should pass happily. In my next chapter +I shall enter on my tour to Orkney. It dates one year earlier (1846) +than the tour with which I have already occupied so many chapters; but I +have thus inverted the order of _time_, by placing it last, that I may +be able so to preserve the order of _space_ as to render the tract +travelled over in my narrative continuous from Edinburgh to the northern +extremity of Pomona. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + Recovered Health--Journey to the Orkneys--Aboard the Steamer at + Wick--Mr. Bremner--Masonry of the Harbor of Wick--The greatest + Blunders result from good Rules misapplied--Mr. Bremner's Theory + about sea-washed Masonry--Singular Fracture of the Rock near + Wick--The Author's mode of accounting for it--"Simple but not + obvious" Thinking--Mr. Bremner's mode of making stone Erections + under Water--His exploits in raising foundered Vessels--Aspect of + the Orkneys--- The ungracious Schoolmaster--In the Frith of + Kirkwall--Cathedral of St. Magnus--Appearance of Kirkwall--Its + "perished suppers"--Its ancient Palaces--Blunder of the Scotch + Aristocracy--The patronate Wedge--Breaking Ground in Orkney--Minute + gregarious Coccosteus--True Position of the Coccosteus' Eyes--Ruins + of one of Cromwell's Forts--Antiquities of Orkney--The + Cathedral--Its Sculptures--The Mysterious Cell--Prospect from the + Tower--Its Chimes--Ruins of Castle Patrick. + + +A twelvemonth had gone by since a lingering indisposition, which bore +heavily on the springs of life, compelled me to postpone a +long-projected journey to the Orkneys, and led me to visit, instead, +rich level England, with its well-kept roads and smooth railways, along +which the enfeebled invalid can travel far without fatigue. I had now +got greatly stronger; and, if not quite up to my old thirty miles per +day, nor altogether so bold a cragsman as I had been only a few years +before, I was at least vigorous enough to enjoy a middling long walk, +and to breast a tolerably steep hill. And so I resolved on at least +glancing over, if not exploring, the fossiliferous deposits of the +Orkneys, trusting that an eye somewhat practised in the formations +mainly developed in these islands might enable me to make some amends +for seeing comparatively little, by seeing well. I took coach at +Invergordon for Wick early in the morning of Friday; and, after a weary +ride, in a bleak gusty day, that sent the dust of the road whirling +about the ears of the sorely-tossed "outsides," with whom I had taken my +chance, I alighted in Wick, at the inn-door, a little after six o'clock +in the evening. The following morning was wet and dreary; and a tumbling +sea, raised by the wind of the previous day and night, came rolling into +the bay; but the waves bore with them no steamer; and when, some five +hours after the expected time, she also came rolling in, her darkened +and weather-beaten sides and rigging gave evidence that her passage from +the south had been no holiday trip. Impatient, however, of looking out +upon the sea for hours, from under dripping eaves, and through the +dimmed panes of streaming windows, I got aboard with about half-a-dozen +other passengers; and while the Wick goods were in the course of being +transferred to two large boats alongside, we lay tossing in the open +bay. The work of raising box and package was superintended by a tall +elderly gentleman from the shore, peculiarly Scotch in his +appearance,--the steam company's agent for this part of the country. + +"That," said an acquaintance, pointing to the agent, "is a very +extraordinary man,--in his own special walk, one of the most +original-minded, and at the same time most thoroughly practical, you +perhaps ever saw. That is Mr. Bremner of Wick, known now all over +Britain for his success in raising foundered vessels, when every one +else gives them up. In the lifting of vast weights, or the overcoming +the _vis inertiae_ of the hugest bodies, nothing ever baffles Mr. +Bremner. But come, I must introduce you to him. He takes an interest in +your peculiar science, and is familiar with your geological writings." + +I was accordingly introduced to Mr. Bremner, and passed, in his company +the half-hour which we spent in the bay, in a way that made me wish the +time doubled. I had been struck by the peculiar style of masonry +employed in the harbor of Wick, and by its rock-like strength. The gray +ponderous stones of the flagstone series of which it is built, instead +of being placed on their flatter beds, like common ashlar in a building, +or horizontal strata in a quarry, are raised on end, like staves in a +pail or barrel, so that at some little distance the work looks as if +formed of upright piles or beams jambed fast together. I had learned +that Mr. Bremner had been the builder, and adverted to the peculiarity +of his style of building. "You have given a vertical tilt to your +strata," I said: "most men would have preferred the horizontal position. +It used to be regarded as one of the standing rules of my old +profession, that the 'broad bed of a stone' is the best, and should be +always laid 'below.'" "A good rule for the land," replied Mr. Bremner, +"but no good rule for the sea. The greatest blunders are almost always +perpetrated through the misapplication of good rules. On a coast like +ours, where boulders of a ton weight are rolled about with every storm +like pebbles, these stones, if placed on what a workman would term their +best beds, would be scattered along the shore like sea-wrack, by the +gales of a single winter. In setting aside the prejudice," continued Mr. +Bremner, "that what is indisputably the best bed for a stone on dry land +is also the best bed in the water on an exposed coast, I reasoned +thus:--The surf that dashes along the beach in times of tempest, and +that forms the enemy with which I have to contend, is not simply water, +with an onward impetus communicated to it by the wind and tide, and a +reactive impetus in the opposite direction,--the effect of the backward +rebound, and of its own weight, when raised by these propelling forces +above its average level of surface. True, it is all this; but it is also +something more. As its white breadth of foam indicates, it is a subtile +mixture of water and _air_, with a powerful _upward_ action,--a +consequence of the air struggling to effect its escape; and this upward +action must be taken into account in our calculations, as certainly as +the other and more generally recognized actions. In striking against a +piece of building, this subtile mixture dashes through the interstices +into the interior of the masonry, and, filling up all its cavities, has +by its upward action, a tendency to _set the work afloat_. And the +broader the beds of the stones, of course the more extensive are the +surfaces which it has to act upon. One of these flat flags, ten feet by +four, and a foot in thickness, would present to this upheaving force, if +placed on end, a superficies of but _four_ square feet; whereas, if +placed on its broader base, it would present to it a superficies of +_forty_ square feet. Obviously, then, with regard to this aerial +upheaving force, that acts upon the masonry in a direction in which no +precautions are usually adopted to bind it fast,--for the existence of +the force itself is not taken into account,--the greater bed of the +stone must be just ten times over a worse bed than its lesser one; and +on a tempestuous foam-encircled coast such as ours, this aerial +upheaving force is in reality, though the builder may not know it, one +of the most formidable forces with which he had to deal. And so, on +these principles, I ventured to set my stones on end,--on what was +deemed their _worst_, not their _best_ beds,--wedging them all fast +together, like staves in an anker; and there, to the scandal of all the +old rules, are they fast wedged still, firm as a rock." It was no +ordinary man that could have originated such reasonings on such a +subject, or that could have thrown himself so boldly, and to such +practical effect, on the conclusions to which they led. + +Mr. Bremner adverted, in the course of our conversation, to a singular +appearance among the rocks a little to the east and south of the town +of Wick, that had not, he said, attracted the notice it deserved. The +solid rock had been fractured by some tremendous blow, dealt to it +externally at a considerable height over the sea-level, and its detached +masses scattered about like the stones of an ill-built harbor broken up +by a storm. The force, whatever its nature, had been enormously great. +Blocks of some thirty or forty tons weight had been torn from out the +solid strata, and piled up in ruinous heaps, as if the compact precipice +had been a piece of loose brickwork, or had been driven into each other, +as if, instead of being composed of perhaps the hardest and toughest +sedimentary rock in the country, they had been formed of sun-dried clay. +"I brought," continued Mr. Bremner, "one of your itinerant geological +lecturers to the spot, to get his opinion; but he could say nothing +about the appearance: it was not in his books." "I suspect," I replied, +"the phenomenon lies quite as much within your own province as within +that of the geological lecturer. It is in all probability an +illustration, on a large scale, of those floating forces with which you +operate on your foundered vessels, joined to the forces, laterally +exerted, by which you drag them towards the shore. When the sea stood +higher, or the land lower, in the eras of the raised beaches, along what +is now Caithness, the abrupt mural precipices by which your coast here +is skirted must have secured a very considerable depth of water up to +the very edge of the land;--your coast-line must have resembled the side +of a mole or wharf: and in that glacial period to which the thick +deposit of boulder-clay immediately over your harbor yonder belongs, +icebergs of very considerable size must not unfrequently have brushed +the brows of your precipices. An iceberg from eighty to a hundred feet +in thickness, and perhaps half a square mile in area, could not, in +this old state of things, have come in contact with these cliffs without +first catching the ground outside; and such an iceberg, propelled by a +fierce storm from the north-east, could not fail to lend the cliff with +which it came in collision a tremendous blow. You will find that your +shattered precipice marks, in all probability, the scene of a collision +of this character: some hard-headed iceberg must have set itself to run +down the land, and got wrecked upon it for its pains." My theory, though +made somewhat in the dark,--for I had no opportunity of seeing the +broken precipice until after my return from Orkney,--seemed to satisfy +Mr. Bremner; nor, on a careful survey of the phenomenon, the solution of +which it attempted, did I find occasion to modify or give it up. + +With just knowledge enough of Mr. Bremner's peculiar province to +appreciate his views, I was much impressed by their broad and practical +simplicity; and bethought me, as we conversed, that the character of the +thinking, which, according to Addison, forms the staple of all writings +of genius, and which he defines as "simple but not obvious," is a +character which equally applies to _all_ good thinking, whatever its +special department. Power rarely resides in ingenious complexities: it +seems to eschew in every walk the elaborately attenuated and razor-edged +mode of thinking,--the thinking akin to that of the old metaphysical +poets,--and to select the broad and massive style. Hercules, in all the +representations of him which I have yet seen, is the _broad_ Hercules. I +was greatly struck by some of Mr. Bremner's views on deep-sea founding. +He showed me how, by a series of simple, but certainly not obvious +contrivances, which had a strong air of practicability about them, he +could lay down his erection, course by course, inshore, in a floating +caisson of peculiar construction, beginning a little beyond the low-ebb +line, and warping out his work piecemeal, as it sank, till it had +reached its proper place, in, if necessary, from ten to twelve fathoms +water, where, on a bottom previously prepared for it by the diving-bell, +he had means to make it take the ground exactly at the required line. +The difficulty and vast expense of building altogether by the bell would +be obviated, he said, by the contrivance, and a solidity given to the +work otherwise impossible in the circumstances: the stones could be laid +in his floating caisson with a care as deliberate as on the land. Some +of the anecdotes which he communicated to me on this occasion, connected +with his numerous achievements in weighing up foundered vessels, or in +floating off wrecked or stranded ones, were of singular interest; and I +regretted that they should not be recorded in an autobiographical +memoir. Not a few of them were humorously told, and curiously +illustrative of that general ignorance regarding the "strength of +materials" in which the scientific world has been too strangely suffered +to lie, in this the world's most mechanical age; so that what ought to +be questions of strict calculation are subjected to the guessings of a +mere common sense, far from adequate, in many cases, to their proper +resolution. "I once raised a vessel," said Mr. Bremner,--"a large +collier, chock-full of coal,--which an English projector had actually +engaged to raise with huge bags of India rubber, inflated with air. But +the bags, of course taxed far beyond their strength, collapsed or burst; +and so, when I succeeded in bringing the vessel up, through the +employment of more adequate means, I got not only ship and cargo, but +also a great deal of good India rubber to boot." Only a few months after +I enjoyed the pleasure of this interview with the Brindley of Scotland, +he was called south, to the achievement of his greatest feat in at least +one special department,--a feat generally recognized and appreciated as +the most herculean of its kind ever performed,--the raising and warping +off of the Great Britain steamer from her perilous bed in the sand of an +exposed bay on the coast of Ireland. I was conscious of a feeling of +sadness as, in parting with Mr. Bremner, I reflected, that a man so +singularly gifted should have been suffered to reach a period of life +very considerably advanced, in employments little suited to exert his +extraordinary faculties, and which persons of the ordinary type could +have performed as well. Napoleon,--himself possessed of great +genius,--could have estimated more adequately than our British rulers +the value of such a man. Had Mr. Bremner been born a Frenchman, he would +not now be the mere agent of a steam company, in a third-rate seaport +town. + +The rain had ceased, but the evening was gloomy and chill; and the +Orcades, which, on clearing the Caithness coast, came as fully in view +as the haze permitted, were enveloped in an undress of cloud and spray, +that showed off their flat low features to no advantage at all. The +bold, picturesque Hebrides look well in any weather; but the level +Orkney Islands, impressed everywhere, on at least their eastern coasts, +by the comparatively tame character borne by the Old Red flagstones, +when undisturbed by trap or the primary rocks, demand the full-dress +auxiliaries of bright sun and clear sky, to render their charms patent. +Then, however, in their sleek coats of emerald and purple, and +surrounded by their blue sparkling sounds and seas, with here a long +dark wall of rock, that casts its shadow over the breaking waves, and +there a light fringe of sand and broken shells, they are, as I +afterwards ascertained, not without their genuine beauties. But had they +shared in the history of the neighboring Shetland group, that, according +to some of the older historians, were suffered to lie uninhabited for +centuries after their first discovery, I would rather have been +disposed to marvel this evening, not that they had been unappropriated +so long, but that they had been appropriated at all. The late member for +Orkney, not yet unseated by his Shetland opponent, was one of the +passengers in the steamboat; and, with an elderly man, an ambitious +schoolmaster, strongly marked by the peculiarities of the genuine +dominie, who had introduced himself to him as a brother voyager, he was +pacing the quarter-deck, evidently doing his best to exert, under an +unintermittent hot-water _douche_ of queries, the patient courtesy of a +Member of Parliament on a visit to his constituency. At length, however, +the troubler quitted him, and took his stand immediately beside me; and, +too sanguinely concluding that I might take the same kind of liberty +with the schoolmaster that the schoolmaster had taken with the Member, I +addressed to him a simple query in turn. But I had mistaken my man; the +schoolmaster permitted to unknown passengers in humble russet no such +sort of familiarities as those permitted by the Member; and so I met +with a prompt rebuff, that at once set me down. I was evidently a big, +forward lad, who had taken a liberty with the master. It is, I suspect, +scarce possible for a man, unless naturally very superior, to live among +boys for some twenty or thirty years, exerting over them all the while a +despotic authority, without contracting those peculiarities of character +which the master-spirits,--our Scots, Lambs, and Goldsmiths,--have +embalmed with such exquisite truth in our literature, and which have +hitherto militated against the practical realization of those +unexceptionable abstractions in behalf of the status and standing of the +teacher of youth which have been originated by men less in the habit of +looking about them than the poets. It is worth while remarking how +invariably the strong common sense of the Scotch people has run every +scheme under water that, confounding the character of the "village +schoolmaster" with that of the "village clergyman," would demand from +the schoolmaster the clergyman's work. + +We crossed the opening of the Pentland Frith, with its white surges and +dark boiling eddies, and saw its twin lighthouses rising tall and +ghostly amid the fog on our lee. We then skirted the shores of South +Ronaldshay, of Burra, of Copinshay, and of Deerness; and, after doubling +Moul Head, and threading the sound which separates Shapinshay from the +Mainland, we entered the Frith of Kirkwall, and caught, amid the +uncertain light of the closing evening, our earliest glimpse of the +ancient Cathedral of St. Magnus. It seems at first sight as if standing +solitary, a huge hermit-like erection, at the bottom of a low bay,--for +its humbler companions do not make themselves visible until we have +entered the harbor by a mile or two more, when we begin to find that it +occupies, not an uninhabited tract of shore, but the middle of a gray +straggling town, nearly a mile in length. We had just light enough to +show us, on landing, that the main thoroughfare of the place, very +narrow and very crooked, had been laid out, ere the country beyond had +got highways, or the proprietors carts and carriages, with an exclusive +eye to the necessities of the foot-passenger,--that many of the older +houses presented, as is common in our northern towns, their gables to +the street, and had narrow slips of closes running down along their +fronts,--and that as we receded from the harbor, a goodly portion of +their number bore about them an air of respectability, long maintained, +but now apparently touched by decay. I saw, in advance of one of the +buildings, several vigorous-looking planes, about forty feet in height, +which, fenced by tall houses in front and rear, and flanked by the +tortuosities of the street, had apparently forgotten that they were in +Orkney, and had grown quite as well as the planes of public +thoroughfares grow elsewhere. After an abortive attempt or two made in +other quarters, I was successful in procuring lodgings for a few days in +the house of a respectable widow lady of the place, where I found +comfort and quiet on very moderate terms. The cast of faded gentility +which attached to so many of the older houses of Kirkwall,--remnants of +a time when the wealthier Udallers of the Orkneys used to repair to +their capital at the close of autumn, to while away in each other's +society their dreary winters,--reminded me of the poet Malcolm's "Sketch +of the Borough,"--a portrait for which Kirkwall is known to have +sat,--and of the great revolution effected in its evening parties, when +"tea and turn-out" yielded its place to "tea and turn-in." But the +churchyard of the place, which I had seen, as I passed along, glimmering +with all its tombstones in the uncertain light, was all that remained to +represent those "great men of the burgh," who, according to the poet, +used to "pop in on its card and dancing assemblies, about the eleventh +hour, resplendent in top-boots and scarlet vests," or of its +"suppression-of-vice sisterhood of moral old maids," who kept all their +neighbors right by the terror of their tongues. I was somewhat in a +mood, after my chill and hungry voyage, to recall with a hankering of +regret the vision of its departed suppers, so luxuriously described in +the "Sketch,"--suppers at which "large rounds of boiled beef smothered +in cabbage, smoked geese, mutton hams, roasts of pork, and dishes of +dog-fish and of Welsh rabbits melted in their own fat, were diluted by +copious draughts of strong home-brewed ale, and etherealized by gigantic +bowls of rum punch." But the past, which is not ours, who, alas, can +recall! And, after discussing a juicy steak and a modest cup of tea, I +found I could regard with the indifferency of a philosopher, the +perished suppers of Kirkwall. + +I quitted my lodgings for church next morning about three-quarters of an +hour ere the service commenced; and, finding the doors shut, sauntered +up the hill that rises immediately over the town. The thick gloomy +weather had passed with the night; and a still, bright, clear-eyed +Sabbath looked cheerily down on green isle and blue sea. I was quite +unprepared by any previous description, for the imposing assemblage of +ancient buildings which Kirkwall presents full in the foreground, when +viewed from the road which ascends along this hilly slope to the +uplands. So thickly are they massed together, that, seen from one +special point of view, they seem a portion of some magnificent city in +ruins,--some such city though in a widely different style of +architecture, as Palmyra or Baalbec. The Cathedral of St. Magnus rises +on the right, the castle-palace of Earl Patrick Stuart on the left, the +bishop's palace in the space between; and all three occupy sites so +contiguous, that a distance of some two or three hundred yards abreast +gives the proper angle for taking in the whole group at a glance. I know +no such group elsewhere in Scotland. The church and palace of Linlithgow +are in such close proximity, that, seen together, relieved against the +blue gleam of their lake, they form one magnificent pile; but we have +here a taller, and, notwithstanding its Saxon plainness, a nobler +church, than that of the southern burgh, and at least one palace more. +And the associations connected with the church, and at least one of the +palaces ascend to a remoter and more picturesque antiquity. The +castle-palace of Earl Patrick dates from but the time of James the +Sixth; but in the palace of the bishop, old grim Haco died, after his +defeat at Largs, "of grief," says Buchanan, "for the loss of his army, +and of a valiant youth his relation;" and in the ancient Cathedral, his +body, previous to its removal to Norway, was interred for a winter. The +church and palace belong to the obscure dawn of the national history, +and were Norwegian for centuries before they were Scotch. + +As I was coming down the hill at a snail's pace, I was overtaken by a +countryman on his way to church. "Ye'll hae come," he said, addressing +me, "wi' the great man last night?" "I came in the steamer," I replied, +"with your Member, Mr. Dundas." "O, aye," rejoined the man; "but I'm no +sure he'll be our Member next time. The Voluntaries yonder, ye see," +jerking his head, as he spoke, in the direction of the United Secession +chapel of the place, "are awfu' strong and unco radical; and the Free +Kirk folk will soon be as bad as them. But I belong to the +Establishment; and I side wi' Dundas." The aristocracy of Scotland +committed, I am afraid, a sad blunder when they attempted strengthening +their influence as a class by seizing hold of the Church patronages. +They have fared somewhat like those sailors of Ulysses who, in seeking +to appropriate their master's wealth, let out the winds upon themselves; +and there is now, in consequence, a perilous voyage and an uncertain +landing before them. It was the patronate wedge that struck from off the +Scottish Establishment at least nine-tenths of the Dissenters of the +kingdom,--its Secession bodies, its Relief body, and, finally, its Free +Church denomination,--comprising in their aggregate amount a great and +influential majority of the Scotch people. Our older Dissenters,--a +circumstance inevitable to their position as such,--have been thrown +into the movement party: the Free Church, in her present transition +state, sits loose to all the various political sections of the country; +but her natural tendency is towards the movement party also; and +already, in consequence, do our Scottish aristocracy possess greatly +less political influence in the kingdom of which they own almost all +the soil, than that wielded by their brethren the Irish and English +aristocracy in their respective divisions of the empire. Were the +representation of England and Ireland as liberal as that of Scotland, +and as little influenced by the aristocracy, Conservatism, on the +passing of the Reform Bill, might have taken leave of office for +evermore. And yet neither the English nor Irish are naturally so +Conservative as the Scotch. The patronate wedge, like that appropriated +by Achan, has been disastrous to the people, for it has lost to them the +great benefits of a religious Establishment, and very great these are; +but it threatens, as in the case of the sons of Carmi of old, to work +more serious evil to those by whom it was originally coveted,--"evil to +themselves and all their house." As I approached the Free Church, a +squat, sun-burned, carnal-minded "old wee wifie," who seemed passing +towards the Secession place of worship, after looking wistfully at my +gray maud, and concluding for certain that I could not be other than a +Southland drover, came up to me, and asked, in a cautious whisper, "Will +ye be wantin' a coo?" I replied in the negative; and the wee wifie, +after casting a jealous glance at a group of grave-featured Free Church +folk in our immediate neighborhood, who would scarce have tolerated +Sabbath trading in a Seceder, tucked up her little blue cloak over her +head, and hied away to the chapel. + +In the Free Church pulpit I recognized an old friend, to whom I +introduced myself at the close of the service, and by whom I was +introduced, in turn, to several intelligent members of his session, to +whose kindness I owed, on the following day, introductions to some of +the less accessible curiosities of the place. I rose betimes on the +morning of Monday, that I might have leisure enough before me to see +them all, and broke my first ground in Orkney as a geologist in a quarry +a few hundred yards to the south and east of the town. It is strange +enough how frequently the explorer in the Old Red finds himself +restricted in a locality to well nigh a single organism,--an effect, +probably, of some gregarious instinct in the ancient fishes of this +formation, similar to that which characterizes so many of the fishes of +the present time, or of some peculiarity in their constitution, which +made each choose for itself a peculiar habitat. In this quarry, though +abounding in broken remains, I found scarce a single fragment which did +not belong to an exceedingly minute species of Coccosteus, of which my +first specimen had been sent me a few years before by Mr. Robert Dick, +from the neighborhood of Thurso, and which I at that time, judging from +its general proportions, had set down as the young of the _Coccosteus +cuspidatus_. Its apparent gregariousness, too, quite as marked at Thurso +as in this quarry, had assisted, on the strength of an obvious enough +analogy, in leading to the conclusion. There are several species of the +existing fish, well known on our coasts, that, though solitary when +fully grown, are gregarious when young. The coal-fish, which as the +sillock of a few inches in length congregates by thousands, but as the +colum-saw of from two and a half to three feet is a solitary fish, forms +a familiar instance; and I had inferred that the Coccosteus, found +solitary, in most instances, when at its full size, had, like the +coal-fish, congregated in shoals when in a state of immaturity. But a +more careful examination of the specimens leads me to conclude that this +minute gregarious Coccosteus, so abundant in this locality that its +fragments thickly speckle the strata for hundreds of yards together--(in +one instance I found the dorsal plates of four individuals crowded into +a piece of flag barely six inches square)--was in reality a distinct +species. Though not more than one-fourth the size, measured linearly, of +the _Coccosteus decipiens_, its plates exhibit as many of those lines +of increment which gave to the occipital buckler of the creature its +tortoise-like appearance, and through which plates of the buckler +species were at first mistaken for those of a Chelonian, as are +exhibited by plates of the larger kinds, with an area ten times as +great; its tubercles, too, some of them of microscopic size, are as +numerous;--evidences, I think,--when we take into account that in the +bulkier species the lines and tubercles increased in number with the +growth of the plates, and that, once formed, they seem never to have +been affected by the subsequent enlargement of the creature,--that this +ichthyolite was not an _immature_, but really a _miniature_ Coccosteus. +We may see on the plates of the full-grown Coccosteus, as on the shells +of bivalves, such as _Cardium echinatum_, or on those of spiral +univalves, such as _Buccinum undatum_, the diminutive markings which +they bore when the creature was young; and on the plates of this species +we may detect a regular gradation of tubercles from the microscopic to +the minute, as we may see on the plates of the larger kinds a regular +gradation from the minute to the fall-sized. The average length of the +dwarf Coccosteus of Thurso and Kirkwall, taken from the snout to the +pointed termination of the dorsal plate, ranges from one and a-half to +two inches; its entire length from head to tail probably from three to +four. It was from one of Mr. Dick's specimens of this species that I +first determined the true position of the eyes of the Coccosteus,--a +position which some of my lately-found ichthyolites conclusively +demonstrate, and which Agassiz, in his restoration, deceived by +ill-preserved specimens, has fixed at a point considerably more lateral +and posterior, and where eyes would have been of greatly less use to the +animal. About a field's breadth below this quarry of the _Coccosteus +minor_,--if I may take the liberty of extemporizing a name, until such +time as some person better qualified furnishes the creature with a more +characteristic one,--there are the remains, consisting of fosse and +rampart, with a single cannon lying red and honeycombed amid the ruins, +of one of Cromwell's forts, built to protect the town against the +assaults of an enemy from the sea. In the few and stormy years during +which this ablest of British governors ruled over Scotland, he seems to +have exercised a singularly vigilant eye. The claims on his protection +of even the remote Kirkwall did not escape him. + +The antiquities of the burgh next engaged me; and, as became its dignity +and importance, I began with the Cathedral, a building imposing enough +to rank among the most impressive of its class anywhere, but whose +peculiar _setting_ in this remote northern country, joined to the +associations of its early history with the Scandinavian Rollos, Sigurds, +Einars, and Hacos of our dingier chronicles, serve greatly to enhance +its interest. It is a noble pile, built of a dark-tinted Old Red +Sandstone,--a stone which, though by much too sombre for adequately +developing the elegancies of the Grecian or Roman architecture, to which +a light delicate tone of color seems indispensable, harmonizes well with +the massier and less florid styles of the Gothic. The round arch of that +ancient Norman school which was at one time so generally recognized as +Saxon, prevails in the edifice, and marks out its older portions. A few +of the arches present on their ringstones those characteristic toothed +and zig-zag ornaments that are of not unfamiliar occurrence on the round +squat doorways of the older parish churches of England; but by much the +greater number exhibit merely a few rude mouldings, that bend over +ponderous columns and massive capitals, unfretted by the tool of the +carver. Though of colossal magnificence, the exterior of the edifice +yields in effect, as in all true Gothic buildings,--for the Gothic is +greatest in what the Grecian is least,--to the sombre sublimity of the +interior. The nave, flanked by the dim deep aisles, and by a double row +of smooth-stemmed gigantic columns, supporting each a double tier of +ponderous arches, and the transepts, with their three tiers of small +Norman windows, and their bold semi-circular arcs, demurely gay with +toothed or angular carvings, that speak of the days of Rolf and +Torfeinar, are singularly fine,--far superior to aught else of the kind +in Scotland; and a happy accident has added greatly to their effect. A +rare Byssus,--the _Byssus aeruginosa_ of Linnaeus,--the _Leprasia +aeruginosa_ of modern botanists,--one of those gloomy vegetables of the +damp cave and dark mine whose true habitat is rather under than upon the +earth, has crept over arch, and column, and broad bare wall, and given +to well nigh the entire interior of the building a close-fitted lining +of dark velvety green, which, like the Attic rust of an ancient medal, +forms an appropriate covering to the sculpturings which it enwraps +without concealing, and harmonizes with at once the dim light and the +antique architecture. Where the sun streamed upon it, high over head, +through the narrow windows above, it reminded me of a pall of rich green +velvet. It seems subject, on some of the lower mouldings and damper +recesses, especially amid the tombs and in the aisles, to a decomposing +mildew, which eats into it in fantastic map-like lines of mingled black +and gray, so resembling Runic fret-work, that I had some difficulty in +convincing myself that the tracery which it forms,--singularly +appropriate to the architecture,--was not the effect of design. The +choir and chancel of the edifice, which at the time of my visit were +still employed as the parish church of Kirkwall, and had become a "world +too wide" for the shrunken congregation, are more modern and ornate than +the nave and transepts; and the round arch gives place, in at least +their windows, to the pointed one. But the unique consistency of the +pile is scarce at all disturbed by this mixture of styles. It is truly +wonderful how completely the forgotten architects of the darker ages +contrived to avoid those gross offences against good taste and artistic +feeling into which their successors of a greatly more enlightened time +are continually falling. Instead of idly courting ornament for its own +sake, they must have had as their proposed object the production of some +definite effect, or the development of some special sentiment. It was +perhaps well for them, too, that they were not so overladen as our +modern architects with the _learning_ of their profession. Extensive +knowledge requires great judgment to guide it. If that high genius which +can impart its own homogeneous character to very various materials be +wanting, the more multifarious a man's ideas become, the more is he in +danger of straining after a heterogeneous patch-work excellence, which +is but excellence in its components, and deformity as a whole. Every new +vista opened up to him on what has been produced in his art elsewhere +presents to him merely a new avenue of error. His mind becomes a mere +damaged kaleidoscope, full of little broken pieces of the fair and the +exquisite, but devoid of that nicely reflective machinery which can +alone cast the fragments into shapes of a chaste and harmonious beauty. + +Judging from the sculptures of St. Magnus, the stone-cutter seems to +have had but an indifferent command of his trade in Orkney, when there +was a good deal known about it elsewhere. And yet the rudeness of his +work here, much in keeping with the ponderous simplicity of the +architecture, serves but to link on the pile to a more venerable +antiquity, and speaks less of the inartificial than of the remote. I saw +a grotesque hatchment high up among the arches, that, with the uncouth +carvings below, served to throw some light on the introduction into +ecclesiastical edifices of those ludicrous sculptures that seem so +incongruously foreign to the proper use and character of such places. +The painter had set himself, with, I doubt not, fair moral intent, to +exhibit a skeleton wrapped up in a winding-sheet; but, like the unlucky +artist immortalized by Gifford, who proposed painting a lion, but +produced merely a dog, his skill had failed in seconding his intentions, +and, instead of achieving a Death in a shroud, he had achieved but a +monkey grinning in a towel. His contemporaries, however, unlike those of +Gifford's artist, do not seem to have found out the mistake, and so the +betowelled monkey has come to hold a conspicuous place among the +solemnities of the Cathedral. It does not seem difficult to conceive how +unintentional ludicrosities of this nature, introduced into +ecclesiastical erections in ages too little critical to distinguish +between what the workman had purposed doing and what he had done, might +come to be regarded, in a less earnest but more knowing age, as +precedents for the introduction of the intentionally comic and +grotesque. Innocent accidental monkeys in towels may have thus served to +usher into serious neighborhoods monkeys in towels that were such with +malice _prepense_. + +I was shown an opening in the masonry, rather more than a man's height +from the floor, that marked where a square narrow cell, formed in the +thickness of the wall, had been laid open a few years before. And in the +cell there was found depending from the middle of the roof a rusty iron +chain, with a bit of barley-bread attached. What could the chain and bit +of bread have meant? Had they dangled in the remote past over some +northern Ugolino? or did they form in their dark narrow cell, without +air-hole or outlet, merely some of the reserve terrors of the +Cathedral, efficient in bending to the authority of the Church the +rebellious monk or refractory nun? Ere quitting the building, I scaled +the great tower,--considerably less tall, it is said, than its +predecessor, which was destroyed by lightning about two hundred years +ago, but quite tall enough to command an extensive, and, though bare, +not unimpressive prospect. Two arms of the sea, that cut so deeply into +the mainland on its opposite sides as to narrow it into a flat neck +little more than a mile and a half in breadth, stretch away in long +vista, the one to the south, and the other to the north; and so +immediately is the Cathedral perched on the isthmus between, as to be +nearly equally conspicuous from both. It forms in each, to the +inward-bound vessel, the terminal object in the landscape. There was not +much to admire in the town immediately beneath, with its roofs of gray +slate,--almost the only parts of it visible from this point of +view,--and its bare treeless suburbs; nor yet in the tract of mingled +hill and moor on either hand, into which the island expands from the +narrow neck, like the two ends of a sand-glass; but the long withdrawing +ocean-avenues between, that seemed approaching from south and north to +kiss the feet of the proud Cathedral,--avenues here and there enlivened +on their ground of deep blue by a sail, and fringed on the lee--for the +wind blew freshly in the clear sunshine--with their border of dazzling +white, were objects worth while climbing the tower to see. Ere my +descent, my guide hammered out of the tower-bells, on my special behalf, +somewhat, I daresay, to the astonishment of the burghers below, a set of +chimes handed down entire, in all the notes, from the times of the +monks, from which also the four fine bells of the Cathedral have +descended as an heirloom to the burgh. The chimes would have delighted +the heart of old Lisle Bowles, the poet of + + "Well-tun'd bell's enchanting harmony." + +I could, however, have preferred listening to their music, though it +seemed really very sweet, a few hundred yards further away; and the +quiet clerical poet,--the restorer of the Sonnet in England, would, I +doubt not, have been of the same mind. The oft-recurring tones of those +bells that ring throughout his verse, and to which Byron wickedly +proposed adding a _cap_, form but an ingredient of the poetry in which +he describes them; and they are represented always as distant tones, +that, while they mingle with the softer harmonies of nature, never +overpower them. + + "How sweet the tuneful bells responsive peal! + + * * * * * + + And, hark! with lessening cadence now they fall, + And now, along the white and level tide + They fling their melancholy music wide! + Bidding me many a tender thought recall + Of happy hours departed, and those years + When, from an antique tower, ere life's fair prime, + The mournful mazes of their mingling chime + First wak'd my wondering childhood into tears!" + +From the Cathedral I passed to the mansion of Old Earl Patrick,--a +stately ruin, in the more ornate castellated style of the sixteenth +century. It stands in the middle of a dense thicket of what are _trying_ +to be trees, and have so far succeeded, that they conceal, on one of the +sides, the lower story of the building, and rise over the _spring_ of +the large richly-decorated turrets. These last form so much nearer the +base of the edifice than is common in our old castles, that they exhibit +the appearance rather of hanging towers than of turrets,--of towers with +their foundations cut away. The projecting windows, with their deep +mouldings, square mullions, and cruciform shot-holes, are rich +specimens of their peculiar style; and, with the double-windowed turrets +with which they range, they communicate a sort of _high-relief_ effect +to the entire erection, "the exterior proportions and ornaments of +which," says Sir Walter Scott, in his Journal, "are very handsome." +Though a roofless and broken ruin, with the rank grass waving on its +walls, it is still a piece of very solid masonry, and must have been +rather stiff working as a quarry. Some painstaking burgher had, I found, +made a desperate attempt on one of the huge chimney lintels of the great +hall of the erection,--an apartment which Sir Walter greatly admired, +and in which he lays the scene in the "Pirate" between Cleveland and +Jack Bunce, but the lintel, a curious example of what, in the exercise +of a little Irish liberty, is sometimes termed a _rectilinear arch_, +defied his utmost efforts; and, after half-picking out the keystone, he +had to give it up in despair. The bishop's palace, of which a handsome +old tower still remains tolerably entire, also served for a quarry in +its day; and I was scarce sufficiently distressed to learn, that on +almost the last occasion on which it had been wrought for this purpose, +one of the two men engaged in the employment suffered a stone, which he +had loosed out of the wall, to drop on the head of his companion, who +stood watching for it below, and killed him on the spot. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + The Bishop's Palace at Orkney--Haco the Norwegian--Icelandic + Chronicle respecting his Expedition to Scotland--His Death--Removal + of his Remains to Norway--Why Norwegian Invasion + ceased--Straw-plaiting--The Lassies of Orkney--Orkney Type of + Countenance--Celtic and Scandinavian--An accomplished + Antiquary--Old Manuscripts--An old Tune-book--Manuscript Letter of + Mary Queen of Scots--Letters of General Monck--The fearless + Covenanter--Cave of the Rebels--Why the tragedy of "Gustavus Vasa" + was prohibited--Quarry of Pickoquoy--Its Fossil Shells--Journey to + Stromness--Scenery--Birth-place of Malcolm, the Poet--His + History--One of his Poems--His Brother a Free Church Minister--New + Scenery. + + +The "upper story" of the bishop's palace, in which grim old Haco +died,--thanks to the economic burghers who converted the stately ruin +into a quarry,--has wholly disappeared. Though the death of this last of +the Norwegian invaders does not date more than ten years previous to the +birth of the Bruce, it seems to belong, notwithstanding, to a different +and greatly more ancient period of Scottish history; as if it came under +the influence of a sort of aerial perspective, similar to that which +makes a neighboring hill in a fog appear as remote as a distant mountain +when the atmosphere is clearer. Our national wars with the English were +rendered familiar to our country folk of the last age, and for centuries +before by the old Scotch "_Makkaris,_" Barbour and Blind Harry, and in +our own times by the glowing narratives of Sir Walter Scott,--magicians +who, unlike those ancient sorcerers that used to darken the air with +their incantations, possessed the rare power of dissipating the mists +and vapors of the historic atmosphere, and rendering it transparent. But +we had no such chroniclers of the time, though only half an age further +removed into the past, + + "When Norse and Danish galleys plied + Their oars within the Frith of Clyde, + And floated Haco's banner trim + Above Norweyan warriors grim, + Savage of heart and large of limb." + +And hence the thick haze in which it is enveloped. Curiously enough, +however, this period, during which the wild Scot had to contend with the +still wilder wanderers of Scandinavia in fierce combats that he was too +little skilful to record, and which appears so obscure and remote to his +descendants, presents a phase comparatively near, and an outline +proportionally sharp and well-defined to the intelligent peasantry of +Iceland. _Their_ Barbours and Blind Harries came a few ages sooner than +ours, and the fog, in consequence, rose earlier; and so, while Scotch +antiquaries of no mean standing can say almost nothing about the +expedition or death-bed of Haco, even the humbler Icelanders, taught +from their Sagas in the long winter nights, can tell how, harassed by +anxiety and fatigue, the monarch sickened, and recovered, and sickened +again; and how, dying in the bishop's palace, his body was interred for +a winter in the Cathedral, and then borne in spring to the burying-place +of his ancestors in Norway. The only clear vista on the death of Haco +which now exists is that presented by an Icelandic chronicler: to which, +as it seems so little known even in Orkney that the burying-place of the +monarch is still occasionally sought for in the Cathedral, I must +introduce the reader. I quote from an extract containing the account of +Haco's expedition against Scotland, which was translated from the +original Icelandic by the Rev. James Johnstone, chaplain to his +Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary at the court of Denmark, and +appeared in the "Edinburgh Magazine" for 1787. + +"King Haco," says the chronicler, "now in the seven and fortieth year of +his reign, had spent the summer in watchfulness and anxiety. Being often +called to deliberate with his captains, he had enjoyed little rest; and +when he arrived at Kirkwall, he was confined to his bed by his disorder. +Having lain for some nights, the illness abated, and he was on foot for +three days. On the first day he walked about in his apartments; on the +second he attended at the bishop's chapel to hear mass; and on the third +he went to Magnus Church, and walked round the shrine of St. Magnus, +Earl of Orkney. He then ordered a bath to be prepared, and got himself +shaved. Some nights after, he relapsed, and took again to his bed. +During his sickness he ordered the Bible and Latin authors to be read to +him. But finding his spirits were too much fatigued by reflecting on +what he had heard, he desired Norwegian books might be read to him night +and day: first the lives of saints; and, when they were ended, he made +his attendants read the Chronicles of our Kings, from Holden the Black, +and so of all the Norwegian monarchs in succession, one after the other. +The king still found his disorder increasing. He therefore took into +consideration the pay to be given to his troops, and commanded that a +merk of fine silver should be given to each courtier, and half a merk to +each of the masters of the lights, chamberlain, and other attendants on +his person. He ordered all the silver-plate belonging to his table to be +weighed, and to be distributed if his standard silver fell short.... +King Haco received extreme unction on the night before the festival of +St. Lucia. Thorgisl, Bishop of Stravanger, Gilbert, Bishop of Hainar, +Henry, Bishop of Orkney, Albert Thorleif and many other learned men, +were present; and, before the unction, all present bade the king +farewell with a kiss.... The festival of the Virgin St. Lucia happened +on a Thursday; and on the Saturday after, the king's disorder increased +to such a degree, that he lost the use of his speech; and at midnight +Almighty God called King Haco out of this mortal life. This was matter +of great grief to all those who attended, and to most of those who heard +of the event. The following barons were present at the death of the +king:--Briniolf Johnson, Erling Alfson, John Drottning, Ronald Urka, and +some domestics who had been near the king's person during his illness. +Immediately on the decease of the king, bishops and learned men were +sent for to sing mass.... On Sunday the royal corpse was carried to the +upper hall, and laid on a bier. The body was clothed in a rich garb, +with a garland on its head, and dressed out as became a crowned monarch. +The masters of the lights stood with tapers in their hands, and the +whole hall was illuminated. All the people came to see the body, which +appeared beautiful and animated; and the king's countenance was as fair +and ruddy as while he was alive. It was some alleviation of the deep +sorrow of the beholders to see the corpse of their departed sovereign so +decorated. High mass was then sung for the deceased. The nobility kept +watch by the body during the night. On Monday the remains of King Haco +were carried to St. Magnus Church, where they lay in state that night. +On Tuesday the royal corpse was put in a coffin, and buried in the choir +of St. Magnus Church, near the steps leading to the shrine of St. +Magnus, Earl of Orkney. The tomb was then closed, and a canopy was +spread over it. It was also determined that watch should be kept over +the king's grave all winter. At Christmas the bishop and Andrew Plytt +furnished entertainments, as the king had directed; and good presents +were given to all the soldiers. King Haco had given orders that his +remains should be carried east to Norway, and buried near his fathers +and relatives. Towards the end of winter, therefore, that great vessel +which he had in the west was launched, and soon got ready. On Ash +Wednesday the corpse of King Haco was taken out of the ground: this +happened the third of the nones of March. The courtiers followed the +corpse to Skalpeid, where the ship lay, and which was chiefly under the +direction of the Bishop Thorgisl and Andrew Plytt. They put to sea on +the first Saturday in Lent; but, meeting with hard weather, they steered +for Silavog. From this place they wrote letters to Prince Magnus, +acquainting him with the news, and then sailed for Bergen. They arrived +at Laxavog before the festival of St. Benedict. On that day Prince +Magnus rowed out to meet the corpse. The ship was brought near to the +king's palace, and the body was carried up to a summer-house. Next +morning the corpse was removed to Christ's Church, and was attended by +Prince Magnus, the two queens, the courtiers, and the town's people. The +body was then interred in the choir of Christ's Church; and Prince +Magnus addressed a long and gracious speech to those who attended the +funeral procession. All the multitude present were much affected, and +expressed great sorrow of mind." + +So far the Icelandic chronicle. Each age has as certainly its own mode +of telling its stories as of adjusting its dress or setting its cap; and +the mode of this northern historian is somewhat prolix. I am not sure, +however, whether I would not prefer the simple minuteness with which he +dwells on every little circumstance, to that dissertative style of +history characteristic of a more reflective age, that for series of +facts substitutes bundles of theories. Cowper well describes the +historians of this latter school, and shows how, on selecting some +little-known personage of a remote time as their hero, + + "They disentangle from the puzzled skein + In which obscurity has wrapped them up, + The threads of politic and shrewd design + That ran through all his purposes, and charge + His mind with meanings that he never had, + Or, having, kept concealed." + +I have seen it elaborately argued by a writer of this class, that those +wasting incursions of the Northmen which must have been such terrible +plagues to the southern and western countries of Europe, ceased in +consequence of their conversion to Christianity; for that, under the +humanizing influence of religion, they staid at home, and cultivated the +arts of peace. But the hypothesis is, I fear, not very tenable. +Christianity, in even a purer form than that in which it first found its +way among the ancient Scandinavians, and when at least as generally +recognized nationally as it ever was by the subjects of Haco, has failed +to put down the trade of aggressive war. It did not prevent honest, +obstinate George the Third from warring with the Americans or the +French: it only led him to enjoin a day of thanksgiving when his troops +had slaughtered a great many of the enemy, and to ordain a fast when the +enemy had slaughtered, in turn, a great many of his troops. And Haco, +who, though he preferred the lives of the saints, and even of his +ancestors, who could not have been very great saints, to the Scriptures, +seems, for a king, to have been a not undevout man in his way, and yet +appears to have had as few compunctions visitings on the score of his +Scottish war as George the Third on that of the French or the American +one. Christianity, too, ere his invasion of Scotland, had been for a +considerable time established in his dominions, and ought, were the +theory a true one, to have operated sooner. The Cathedral of St. Magnus, +when he walked round the shrine of its patron saint, was at least a +century old. The true secret of the cessation of Norwegian invasion +seems to have been the consolidation, under vigorous princes, of the +countries which had lain open to it,--a circumstance which, in the later +attempts of the invaders, led to results similar to those which broke +the heart of tough old Haco, in the bishop's palace at Kirkwall. + +From the ruins I passed to the town, and spent a not uninstructive +half-hour in sauntering along the streets in the quiet of the evening, +acquainting myself with the general aspect of the people. I marked, as +one of the peculiar features of the place, groups of tidily-dressed +young women, engaged at the close-heads with their straw plait,--the +prevailing manufacture of the town,--and enjoying at the same time the +fresh air and an easy chat. The special contribution made by the lassies +of Orkney to the dress of their female neighbors all over the empire, +has led to much tasteful dressing among themselves. Orkney, on its gala, +days, is a land of ladies. What seems to be the typical countenance of +these islands unites an aquiline but not prominent nose to an oval face. +In the ordinary Scotch and English countenance, when the nose is +aquiline it is also prominent, and the face is thin and angular, as if +the additional height of the central feature had been given it at the +expense of the cheeks, and of lateral shavings from off the chin. The +hard Duke-of-Wellington face is illustrative of this type. But in the +aquiline type of Orkney the countenance is softer and fuller, and, in at +least the female face, the general contour greatly more handsome. Dr. +Kombst, in his ethnographic map of Britain and Ireland, gives to the +coast of Caithness and the Shetland Islands a purely Scandinavian +people, but to the Orkneys a mixed race, which he designates the +Scandinavian-Gaelic. I would be inclined, however,--preferring rather to +found on those traits of person and character that are still patent, +than on the unauthenticated statements of uncertain history,--to regard +the people as essentially one from the northern extremity of Shetland to +the Ord Hill of Caithness. Beyond the Ord Hill, and on to the northern +shores of the Frith of Cromarty, we find, though unnoted on the map, a +different race,--a race strongly marked by the Celtic lineaments, and +speaking the Gaelic tongue. On the southern side of the Frith, and +extending on to the Bay of Munlochy, the purely Scandinavian race again +occurs. The sailors of the Danish fleet which four years ago accompanied +the Crown Prince in his expedition to the Faroe Islands were astonished +when, on landing at Cromarty, they recognized in the people the familiar +cast of countenance and feature that marked their country folk and +relatives at home; and found that they were simply Scandinavians like +themselves, who, having forgotten their Danish, spoke Scotch instead. +Rather more than a mile to the west of the fishing village of Avoch +there commences a Celtic district, which stretches on from Munlochy to +the river Nairne; beyond which the Scandinavian and Teutonic-Scandinavian +border that fringes the eastern coast of Scotland extends unbroken +southwards through Moray, Banff, and Aberdeen, on to Forfar, Fife, the +Lothians, and the Mearns. These two intercalated patches of Celtic people +in the northern tract,--that extending from the Ord Hill to the Cromarty +Frith, and that extending from the Bay of Munlochy to the Nairne,--still +retaining, as they do, after the lapse of ages, a sharp distinctness of +boundary in respect of language, character, and personal appearance, are +surely great curiosities. The writer of these chapters was born on the +extreme edge of one of these patches, scarce a mile distant from a +Gaelic-speaking population; and yet, though his humble ancestors were +located on the spot for centuries, he can find trace among them of but one +Celtic name; and their language was exclusively the Lowland Scotch. For +many ages the two races, like oil and water, refused to mix. + +I spent the evening very agreeably with one of the Free Church elders of +the place, Mr. George Petrie, an accomplished antiquary; and found that +his love of the antique, joined to an official connection with the +county, had cast into his keeping a number of curious old papers of the +sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,--not in the least +connected, some of them, with the legal and civic records of the place, +but which had somehow stuck around these, in their course of +transmission from one age to another, as a float of brushwood in a river +occasionally brings down along with it, entangled in its folds, uprooted +plants and aquatic weeds, that would otherwise have disappeared in the +cataracts and eddies of the upper reaches of the stream. Dead as they +seemed, spotted with mildew, and fretted by the moth, I found them +curiously charged with what had once been intellect and emotion, hopes +and fears, stern business and light amusement. I saw, among the other +manuscripts, a thin slip of a book, filled with jottings, in the antique +square-headed style of notation, of old Scotch tunes, apparently the +work of some musical county-clerk of Orkney in the seventeenth century; +but the paper, in a miserable state of decay, was blotted crimson and +yellow with the rotting damps, and the ink so faded, that the notation +of scarce any single piece in the collection seemed legible throughout. +Less valuable and more modern, though curious from their eccentricity, +there lay, in company with the music, several pieces of verse, addressed +by some Orcadian Claud Halcro of the last age, to some local patron, in +a vein of compliment rich and stiff as a piece of ancient brocade. A +peremptory letter, bearing the autograph signature of Mary Queen of +Scots, to Torquil McLeod of Dunvegan, who had been on the eve, it would +seem, of marrying a daughter of Donald of the Isles, gave the Skye +chieftain, "to wit" that, as he was of the blood royal of Scotland, he +could form no matrimonial alliance without the royal permission,--a +permission which, in the case in point, was not to be granted. It served +to show that the woman who so ill liked to be thwarted in her own amours +could, in her character as the Queen, deal despotically enough with the +love affairs of other people. Side by side with the letter of Mary there +were several not less peremptory documents of the times of the +Commonwealth, addressed to the Sheriff of Orkney and Shetland, in the +name of his Highness the Lord Protector, and that bore the signature of +George Monck. I found them to consist chiefly of dunning letters,--such +letters as those duns write who have victorious armies at their +back,--for large sums of money, the assessments laid on the Orkneys by +Cromwell. Another series of letters, some ten or twelve years later in +their date, form portions of the history of a worthy covenanting +minister, the Rev. Alexander Smith of Colvine, banished to North +Ronaldshay from the extreme south of Scotland, for the offence of +preaching the gospel, and holding meetings for social worship in his own +house; and, as if to demonstrate his incorrigibility, one of the +series,--a letter under his own hand, addressed from his island prison +to the Sheriff-Depute in Kirkwall,--showed him as determined and +persevering in the offence as ever. It was written immediately after his +arrival. "The poor inhabitants," says the writer, "so many as I have +yet seen, have received me with much joy. _I intend, if the Lord will, +to preach Christ to them next Lord's day_, without the least mixture of +anything that may smell of sedition or rebellion. If I be farther +troubled for yt, I resolve to suffer with meekness and patience." The +Galloway minister must have been an honest man. Deeming preaching his +true vocation,--a vocation from the exercise of which he dared not +cease, lest he should render himself obnoxious to the woe referred to by +the apostle,--he yet could not steal a march on even the Sheriff, whose +professional duty it was to prevent him from doing _his_; and so he +fairly warned him that he proposed breaking the law. The next set of +papers in the collection dated after the Revolution, and were full +charged with an enthusiastic Jacobitisin, which seems to have been a +prevalent sentiment in Orkney from the death of Queen Anne, until the +disastrous defeat at Culloden quenched in blood the hopes of the party. +There is a deep cave still shown on the shores of Westray, within sight +of the forlorn Patmos of the poor Covenanter, in which, when the sun got +on the Whig side of the hedge, twelve gentlemen, who had been engaged in +the rebellion of 1745, concealed themselves for a whole winter. So +perseveringly were they sought after, that during the whole time they +dared not once light a fire, nor attempt fishing from the rocks to +supply themselves with food; and, though they escaped the search, they +never, it is said, completely recovered the horrors of their term of +dreary seclusion, but bore about with them, in broken constitutions, the +effects of the hardships to which they had been subjected. They must +have had full time and opportunity, during that miserable winter, for +testing the justice of the policy that had sent poor Smith into exile, +from his snug southern parish in the Presbytery of Dumfries, to the +remotest island of the Orkneys. The great lesson taught in Providence +during the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth century to our +Scottish country folk seems to have been the lesson of toleration; and +as they were slow, stubborn scholars, the lash was very frequently and +very severely applied. One of the Jacobite papers of Mr. Petrie's +collection,--a triumphal poem on the victory of Gladsmuir,--which, if +less poetical than the Ode of Hamilton of Bangour on the same subject, +is in no degree less curious,--serves to throw very decided light on a +passage in literary history which puzzled Dr. Johnson, and which scarce +any one would think of going to Orkney to settle. + +Johnson states, in his Life of the poet Thomson, that the "first +operation" of the act passed in 1739 "for licensing plays" was the +"prohibition of 'Gustavus Vasa,' a tragedy of Mr. Brook." "Why such a +work should be obstructed," he adds, "it is hard to discover." We learn +elsewhere,--from the compiler of the "Modern Universal History," if I +remember aright,--that "so popular did the prohibitory order of the Lord +Chamberlain render the play," that, "on its publication the same year, +not less than a thousand pounds were the clear produce." It was not, +however, until more than sixty years after, when both Johnson and Brook +were in their graves, that it was deemed safe to license it for the +stage. Now, the fact that a drama, in itself as little dangerous as +"Cato" or "Douglas," should have been prohibited by the Government of +the day, in the first instance, and should have brought the author, on +its publication, so large a sum in the second, can be accounted for only +by a reference to the keen partisanship of the period, and the peculiar +circumstances of parties. The Jacobites, taught by the rebellion of 1715 +at once the value of the Highlands and the incompetency of the +Chevalier St. George as a leader, had begun to fix their hopes on the +Chevalier's son, Charles Edward, at that time a young but promising lad; +and, with the tragedy of Brook before them, neither they, nor the +English Government of the day could have failed to see the foreigner +George the Second typified--unintentionally, surely, on the part of +Brook, who was a "Prince of Wales" Whig--in the foreigner Christiern +the Second, the Scotch Highlanders in the Mountaineers of Dalecarlia, +and the young Prince in Gustavus. In the Jacobite manuscript of Mr. +Petrie's collection, the parallelism is broadly traced; nor is it in the +least probable, as the poem is a piece of sad mediocrity throughout, +that it is a parallelism which was originated by its writer. It must +have been that of his party; and led, I doubt not, five years before, to +the prohibition of Brook's tragedy, and to the singular success which +attended its publication. The passage in the manuscript suggestive of +this view takes the form of an address to the victorious prince, and +runs as follows:-- + + "Meanwhile, unguarded youth, thou stoodst alone; + The cruel Tyrant urged his Armie on; + But Truth and Goodness were the Best of Arms; + And, fearless Prince, Thou smil'd at Threatened harms. + Thus, Glorious Vasa worked in Swedish mines,-- + Thus, Helpless, Saw his Enemy's Designs,-- + Till, roused, his Hardy Highlanders arose, + And poured Destruction on their foreign foes." + +I rose betimes next morning, and crossed the Peerie [little] Sea, a +shallow prolongation of the Bay of Kirkwall, cut off from the main sea +by an artificial mound, to the quarry of Pickoquoy, somewhat notable, +only a few years ago, as the sole locality in which shells had been +detected in the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. But these have since been +found in the neighborhood of Thurso, by Mr. Robert Dick, associated +with bones and plates of the Asterolepis, and by Mr. William Watt on the +opposite side of the Mainland of Orkney, at Marwick Head. So far as has +yet been ascertained, they are all of one species, and more nearly +resemble a small Cyclas than any other shell. They are, however, more +deeply sulcated in concentric lines, drawn, as if by a pair of +compasses, from the umbone, and somewhat resembling those of the genus +Astarte, than any species of Cyclas with which I am acquainted. In all +the specimens I have yet seen, it appears to be rather a thick dark +epidermis that survives, than the shell which it covered; nay, it seems +not impossible that to its thick epidermis, originally an essentially +different substance from that which composed the calcareous case, the +shell may have owed its preservation as a fossil; while other shells, +its contemporaries, from the circumstance of their having been +unfurnished with any such covering, may have failed to leave any trace +of their existence behind them. It seems at least difficult to conceive +of a sea inhabited by many genera of fishes, each divided into several +species, and yet furnished with but one species of shell. I found the +quarry of Pickoquoy,--a deep excavation only a few yards beyond the +high-water mark, and some two or three yards under the high-water +level,--deserted by the quarrymen, and filled to the brim by the +overflowing of a small stream. I succeeded, however, in detecting its +shells _in situ_. They seem restricted chiefly to a single stratum, +scarcely half an inch in thickness, and lie, not thinly scattered over +the platform which they occupy, but impinging on each other, like all +the gregarious shells, in thickly-set groups and clusters. There occur +among them occasional scales of Dipteri; and on some of the fragments of +rock long exposed around the quarry-mouth to the weather I found them +assuming a pale nacreous gloss,--an effect, it is not improbable, of +their still retaining, attached to the epidermis, a thin film of the +original shell. The world's history must be vastly more voluminous now, +and greatly more varied in its contents, than when the stratum which +they occupy formed the upper layer of a muddy sea-bottom, and they +opened their valves by myriads, to prey on the organic atoms which +formed their food, or shut them again, startled by the shadow of the +Dipterus, as he descended from the upper depths of the water to prey +upon them in turn. The palate of this ancient ganoid is furnished with a +curious dental apparatus, formed apparenly, like that of the recent +wolf-fish, for the purpose of crushing shells. + +About mid-day I set out by the mail-gig for Stromness. For the first few +miles the road winds through a bare solitary valley, overlooked by +ungainly heath-covered hills of no great altitude, though quite tall +enough to prevent the traveller from seeing anything but themselves. As +he passes on, the valley opens in front on an arm of the sea, over which +the range of hills on the right abruptly terminates, while that on the +left deflects into a line nearly parallel to the shore, leaving a +comparatively level strip of moory land, rather more than a mile in +breadth, between the steeper acclivities and the beach. A tall naked +house rises between the road and the sea. Two low islands immediately +behind it, only a few acres in extent,--one of them bearing a small ruin +on its apex,--give a little variety to the central point in the prospect +which the naked house forms; but the arm of the sea, bordered, at the +time I passed, by a broad brown selvage of sea-weed, is as tame and flat +as a Dutch lake; the background beyond, a long monotonous ridge, is bare +and treeless; and in front lies the brown moory plain, bordered by the +dull line of hills and darkened by scattered stacks of peat. + +The scene is not at all such a one as a poet would, for its own sake, +delight to fancy; and yet, in the recollection of at least one very +pleasing poet, its hills, and islands, and blue arm of the sea, its +brown moory plain, and tall naked house rising in the midst, must have +been surrounded by a sunlit atmosphere of love and desire, bright enough +to impart to even its tamest features a glow of exquisiteness and +beauty. Malcolm the poet was born, and spent his years of boyhood and +early youth, in the tall naked house; and the surrounding landscape is +that to which he refers in his "Tales of Flood and Field," as rising in +imagination before him, bright in the red gleam of the setting sun, +when, on the steep slopes of the Pyrenees, the "silent stars of night +were twinkling high over his head," and the "tents of the soldiery +glimmering pale through the gloom." The tall house is the manse of the +parish of Frith and Stennis; and the poet was the son of the Rev. John +Malcolm, its minister. Here, when yet a mere lad, dreaming, in the quiet +obscurity of an Orkney parish, far removed from the seat of war and the +literary circles, of poetic celebrity and military renown, he addressed +a letter to the Duke of Kent, the father of our Sovereign Lady the +reigning Monarch, expressing an ardent wish to obtain a commission in +the army then engaged in the Peninsula. The letter was such as to excite +the interest of his Royal Highness, who replied to it by return of post, +requesting the writer to proceed forthwith to London; for which he +immediately set out, and was received by the Duke with courtesy and +kindness. He was instructed by him to take ship for Spain, in which he +arrived as volunteer; and, joining the army, engaged at the time in the +siege of St. Sebastian, under General Graham, he was promoted shortly +after, through the influence of his generous patron, to a lieutenancy in +the 42d Highlanders. He served in that distinguished regiment on to the +closing campaign of the Pyrenees; but received at the battle of Toulouse +a wound so severe as to render him ever after incapable of active bodily +exertion; and so he had to retire from the army on half-pay, and a +pension honorably earned. The history of his career as a soldier he has +told with singular interest, in one of the earlier volumes of +"Constable's Miscellany;" and his poems abound in snatches of +description painfully true, drawn from his experience of the military +life,--of scenes of stern misery and grim desolation, of injuries +received, and of sufferings inflicted,--that must have contrasted sadly +in his mind, in their character as gross realities, with the dreamy +visions of conquest and glory in which he had indulged at an earlier +time. The ruin of St. Sebastian, complete enough, and attended with +circumstances of the horrible extreme enough, to appal men long +acquainted with the trade of war, must have powerfully impressed an +imaginative susceptible lad, fresh from the domesticities of a rural +manse, in whose quiet neighborhood the voice of battle had not been +heard for centuries, and surrounded by a simple people, remarkable for +the respect which they bear to human life. In all probability, the power +evinced in his description of the siege, and of the utter desolation in +which it terminated, is in part owing to the fresh impressibility of his +mind at the time. Such, at least, was my feeling regarding it, as I +caught myself muttering some of its more graphic passages, and saw, from +the degree of alarm evinced by the boy who drove the mail-gig, that the +sounds were not quite lost in the rattle of that somewhat rickety +vehicle, and that he had come to entertain serious doubts respecting the +sanity of his passenger:-- + + "Sebastian, when I saw thee last, + It was in Desolation's day, + As through thy voiceless streets I passed, + Thy piles in heaps of rubbish lay; + The roofless fragments of each wall + Bore many a dent of shell and ball; + With blood were all thy gateways red, + And thou,--a city of the dead! + + With fire and sword thy walks were swept: + Exploded mines thy streets had heaped + In hills of rubbish; they had been + Traversed by gabion and fascine, + With cannon lowering in the rear + In dark array,--a deadly tier,-- + Whose thunder-clouds, with fiery breath, + Sent far around their iron death; + The bursting shell, in fragments flung + Athwart the skies, at midnight sung, + Or, on its airy pathway sent, + Its meteors sweep the firmament. + Thy castle, towering o'er the shore, + Keeled on its rock amidst the roar + Of thousand thunders, for it stood + In circle of a fiery flood; + And crumbling masses fiercely sent + From its high frowning battlement, + Smote by the shot and whistling shell, + With groan and crash in ruin fell. + Through desert streets the mourner passed, + Midst-walls that spectral shadows east, + Like some fair spirit wailing o'er + The failed scenes it loved of yore; + No human voice was heard to bless + That place of waste and loneliness. + + I saw at eve the night-bird fly, + And vulture dimly flitting by, + To revel o'er each morsel stolen + From the cold corse, all black and swoln + That on the shattered ramparts lay, + Of him who perished yesterday,-- + Of him whose pestilential steam + Rose reeking on the morning beam,-- + Whose fearful fragments, nearly gone, + Were blackening from the bleaching bone. + + The house-dog bounded o'er each scene + Where cisterns had so lately been: + Away in frantic haste he sprung, + And sought to cool his burning tongue. + He howled, and to his famished cry + The dreary echoes gave reply; + And owlet's dirge, through shadows dim, + Rolled back in sad response to him." + +The father was succeeded in his parish by the brother of Malcolm,--a +gentleman to whom, during my stay in Orkney, I took the liberty of +introducing myself in his snug little Free Church manse at the head of +the bay, and in whose possession I found the only portrait of the poet +which exists. It is that of a handsome and interesting looking _young_ +man, though taken not many years before his death; for, like the greater +number of his class, he did not live to be an old one, dying under +forty. His brother the clergyman kindly accompanied me to two quarries +in the neighborhood of his new domicil, which I found, like almost all +the dry-stone fences of the district, speckled with scales, occipital +plates, and gill-covers, of Osteolepides and Dipteri, but containing no +entire ichthyolites. He had taken his side in the Church controversy, he +told me, firmly, but quietly; and when the Disruption came, and he found +it necessary to quit the old manse, which had been a home to his family +for well nigh two generations, and in which both he and his brother had +been born, he scarce knew what his people were to do, nor in what +proportion he was to have followers among them. Somewhat to his +surprise, however, they came out with him almost to a man; so that his +successor in the parish church had sometimes, he understood, to preach +to congregations scarcely exceeding half a dozen. I had learned +elsewhere how thoroughly Mr. Malcolm was loved and respected by his +parishioners; and that unconsciousness on his own part of the strength +of their affection and esteem, which his statement evinced, formed, I +thought, a very pleasing trait, and one that harmonized well with the +finely-toned unobtrusiveness and unconscious elegance which +characterized the genius of his deceased brother. A little beyond the +Free Church manse the road ascends between stone walls, abounding in +fragments of ichthyolites, weathered blue by exposure to the sun and +wind; and the top of the eminence forms the water-shed in this part of +the Mainland, and introduces the traveller to a scene entirely new. The +prospect is of considerable extent; and, what seems strange in Orkney, +nowhere presents the traveller,--though it contains its large inland +lake,--with a glimpse of the sea. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + Hills of Orkney--Their Geologic Composition--Scene of Scott's + "Pirate"--Stromness--Geology of the District--"Seeking + beasts"--Conglomerate in contact with Granite--A palaeozoic Hudson's + Bay--Thickness of Conglomerate of Orkney--Oldest Vertebrate yet + discovered in Orkney--Its Size--Figure of a characteristic plate of + the Asterolepis--Peculiarity of Old Red Fishes--Length of the + Asterolepis--A rich Ichthyolite Bed--Arrangement of the + Layers--Queries as to the Cause of it--Minerals--An abandoned + Mine--A lost Vessel--Kelp for Iodine--A dangerous Coast--Incidents + of Shipwreck--Hospitality--Stromness Museum--Diplopterus mistaken + for Dipterus--Their Resemblances and Differences--Visit to a + remarkable Stack--Paring the Soil for Fuel, and consequent + Barrenness--Description of the Stack--Wave-formed Caves--Height to + which the Surf rises. + + +The Orkneys, like the mainland of Scotland, exhibit their higher hills +and precipices on their western coasts: the Ward Hill of Hoy attains to +an elevation of sixteen hundred feet; and there are some of the +precipices which skirt the island of which it forms so conspicuous a +feature, that rise sheer over the breakers from eight hundred to a +thousand. Unlike, however, the arrangement on the mainland, it is the +newer rocks that attain to the higher elevations; the heights of Hoy are +composed of that arenaceous upper member of the Lower Old Red +Sandstone,--the last formed of the Palaeozoic deposits of Orkney,--which +overlies the ichthyolitic flagstones and shales of Caithness at Dunnet +Head, and the ichthyolitic nodular beds of Inverness, Ross, and +Cromarty, at Culloden, Tarbet Ness, within the Northern Sutor, and along +the bleak ridge of the Maolbuie. It is simply a tall upper story of the +formation, erected along the western line of coast in the Orkneys, which +the eastern line wholly wants. Its screen of hills forms a noble +background to the prospect which opens on the traveller as he ascends +the eminence beyond the Free Church manse of Frith and Stennis. A large +lake, bare and treeless, like all the other lakes and lochs of Orkney, +but picturesque of outline, and divided into an upper and lower sheet of +water by two low, long promontories, that jut out from opposite sides, +and so nearly meet as to be connected by a threadlike line of road, half +mound, half bridge, occupies the middle distance. There are moory hills +and a few cottages in front; and on the promontories, conspicuous in the +landscape, from the relief furnished by the blue ground of the +surrounding waters, stand the tall stones of Stennis,--one group on the +northern promontory, the other on the south. A gray old-fashioned house, +of no very imposing appearance, rises between the road and the lake. It +is the house of Stennis, or Turmister, in which Scott places some of the +concluding scenes of the "Pirate," and from which he makes Cleveland and +his fantastic admirer Jack Bunce witness the final engagement, in the +bay of Stromness, between the Halcyon sloop of war and the savage Goffe. +Nor does it matter anything that neither sea nor vessels can be seen +from the house of Turmister: the fact which would be so fatal to a +dishonest historian tells with no effect against the honest "_maker_," +responsible for but the management of his tale. + +I got on to Stromness; and finding, after making myself comfortable in +my inn, that I had a fine bright evening still before me, longer by some +three or four degrees of north latitude than the July evenings of +Edinburgh, I set out, hammer in hand, to explore. Stromness is a long, +narrow, irregular strip of a town, fairly thrust by a steep hill into +the sea, on which it encroaches in a broken line of wharf-like bulwarks, +along which, at high water, vessels of a hundred tons burden float so +immediately beside the houses, that their pennants on gala days wave +over the chimney tops. The steep hill forms part of a granitic axis, +about six miles in length by a mile in breadth, which forms the backbone +of the district, and against which the Great Conglomerate and lower +schists of the Old Red are upturned at a rather high angle. It is +wrapped round in some places by a thin caul of the stratified primary +rocks. Immediately over the town, on the brow of the eminence, where the +granitic axis had been laid bare in digging a foundation for the Free +Church manse, I saw numerous masses of schistose-gneiss, passing in some +of the beds into a coarse-grained mica-schist, and a lustrous +hornblendic slate, that had been quarried from over it, and which may be +still seen built up into the garden-wall of the erection. I walked out +towards the west, to examine the junction of the granite and the Great +Conglomerate, where it is laid bare by the sea, little more than a +quarter of a mile outside the town. There was a horde of noisy urchins a +little beyond the inn, who, having seen me alight from the mail-gig, had +determined in their own minds that I was engaged in the political +canvass going forward at the time, but had not quite ascertained my +side. They now divided into two parties; and when the one, as I passed, +set up a "Hurra for Dundas," the other met them from the opposite side +of the street, with a counter cry of "Anderson forever." Immediately +after clearing the houses, I was accosted by a man from the country. +"Ye'll be seeking beasts," he said: "what price are cattle gi'en the +noo?" "Yes, seeking _beasts_," I replied, "but very old ones: I have +come to hammer your rocks for petrified fish." "I see, I see," said the +man; "I took ye by ye'er gray plaid for a drover; but I ken something +about the stane fish too; there's lots o' them in the quarries at +Skaill." + +I found the great Conglomerate in immediate contact with the granite, +which is a ternary of the usual components, somewhat intermediate in +color between that of Peterhead and Aberdeen, and which at this point +bears none of the caul of stratified primary rock by which it is +overlaid on the brow of the hill. When the great Conglomerate, which is +mainly composed of it here, was in the act of forming, this granite must +have been one of the surface rocks of the locality, and in no respect a +different stone from what it is now. The widely-spread Conglomerate base +of the Old Red Sandstone, which presents, over an area of so many +thousand square miles, such an identity of character, that specimens +taken from the neighborhood of Lerwick, in Shetland, can scarce be +distinguished from specimens detached from the hills which rise over the +great Caledonian Valley, contains in various places, as under the +Northern Sutor, for instance, and along the shores of Navity, fragments +of rock which have not been detected _in situ_ in the districts in which +they occur as agglomerated pebbles. In general, however, we find it +composed of the debris of those very granites and gneisses which, as in +the case of the granitic axis here, were forced through it, and through +the overlying deposits, by deep-seated convulsions, long posterior in +date to its formation. It appears to have been formed in a vast oceanic +basin of primary rock,--a Palaeozoic Hudson's or Baffin's Bay,--partially +surrounded, mayhap, by bare primary continents, swept by numerous +streams, rapid and headlong, and charged with the broken debris of the +inhospitable regions which they drained. The graptolite-bearing +grauwacke of Banffshire seems to have been the only fossiliferous rock +that occurred throughout the extent of this ancient northern basin. The +Conglomerate of Orkney, like that of Moray and Ross, varies from fifty +to a hundred yards in thickness. It is not overlaid in this section by +the thick bed of coarse-grained sandstone, so well-marked a member of +the formation at Cromarty, Nigg, and Gamrie, and along the northern +shores of the Beauly Frith; but at once passes into those gray +bituminous flagstones so immensely developed in Caithness and the +Orkneys. I traced the formation upwards this evening, walking along the +edges of the upheaved strata, from where the Conglomerate leans against +the granite, till where it merges into the gray flagstones, and then +pursued these from older and lower to newer and higher layers, anxious +to ascertain at what distance over the base the more ancient organisms +of the system first appear, and what their character and kind. And +little more than a hundred _yards_ over the granite, and somewhat less +than a hundred _feet_ over the upper stratum of the great Conglomerate, +I found what I sought,--a well-marked bone, perhaps the oldest +vertebrate remain yet discovered in Orkney, embedded in a light +grayish-colored layer of hard flag. + +What, asks the reader, was the character of the ancient denizen of the +Palaeozoic basin of which it had formed a part? Was it a large or small +fish, or of a high or low order? Not certainly of a low order, and by no +means of a small size. The organism in the rock was a specimen of that +curious nail-shaped bone of the Asterolepis which occurs as a central +ridge in the single plate that occupies in this genus the wide curve of +the under jaw, and as it was fully five inches in length from head to +point, the plate to which it belonged must have measured ten inches +across, and the frontal occipital buckler with which it was associated, +one foot two inches in length (not including the three accessory plates +at the nape), by ten inches in breadth. And if built, as it probably +was, in the same massy proportions as its brother Coelacanths the +Holoptychius or Glyptolepis, the individual to which the nail-shaped +bone belonged must have been, judging from the size of the corresponding +parts in these ichthyolites, at least twice as large an animal as the +splendid Clashbennie Holoptychius of the Upper Old Red, now in the +British Museum. The bulkiest icthyolites yet found in any of the +divisions of the Old Red system are of the genus Asterolepis; and to +this genus, and to evidently an individual of no inconsiderable size, +this oldest of the organisms of the Orkney belonged. I was so interested +in the fact, that before leaving this part of the country, I brought Dr. +Garson, Stromness, and Mr. William Watt, jun., Skaill, both very +intelligent palaeontologists, to mark the place and character of the +fossil, that they might be able to point it out to geological visitors +in the future, or, if they preferred removing it to their town Museum, +to indicate to them the stratum in which it had lain. For the present, I +merely request the reader to mark, in the passing, that the most ancient +organic remain yet found in the Old Red of this part of the country, +nay, judging from its place, one of the most ancient yet found in +Scotland,--so far as I know, absolutely the _most_ ancient,--belonged to +a ganoid as bulky as a large porpoise, and which, as shown by its teeth +and jaws, possessed that peculiar organization which characterized the +reptile fish of the Upper Devonian and Carboniferous periods. As there +are, however, no calculations more doubtful or more to be suspected than +those on which the size and bulk of the extinct animals are determined +from some surviving fragment of their remains,--plate or bone,--I must +attempt laying before the scientific reader at least a portion of the +data on which I found. + +[Illustration] + +This figure represents not inadequately one of the most characteristic +plates of the Asterolepis. A very considerable fragment of what seems to +be the same plate has been figured by Agassiz from a cast of one of the +huge specimens of Professor Asmus ("Old Red," Table 32, Fig. 13); but +as no evidence regarding its true place had turned up at the time it was +supposed by the naturalist to form part of the opercular covering of the +animal. It belonged, however, to a different portion of the head. In +almost all the fish that appear at our tables the space which occurs +within the arched sweep of the lower jaws is mainly occupied by a +complicated osseous mechanism, known to anatomists as the hyoid bone and +branchiostegous rays; and which serves both to support the branchial +arches and the branchiostegous membrane. Now, in the fish of the Old Red +Sandstone, if we except some of the Acanthodians, we find no trace of +this piece of mechanism: the arched space is covered over with dermal +plates of bone, as a window is filled up with panes. Three plates, +resembling very considerably the three divisions of a pointed Gothic +window, furnished with a single central mullion, divided atop into two +branches, occupied the space in the genera Osteolepis and Diplopterus; +and two plates resembling the divisions of a pointed Gothic window, +whose single central mullion does _not_ branch atop, filled it up in the +genera Holoptychius and Glyptolepis. In the genus Asterolepis this +arch-shaped space was occupied, as I have said, by a single plate,--that +represented in the wood-cut; and the nail-shaped bone rose on its +internal surface along the centre,--the nail-head resting immediately +beneath the centre of the arch, and the nail-point bordering on the +isthmus below, at which the two shoulder-bones terminated. Now, in all +the specimens which I have yet examined, the form and proportions of +this plate are such that it can be very nearly inscribed in a +semi-circle, of which the length of the nail is the radius. A nail five +inches in length must have belonged to a plate ten inches in its longer +diameter. I have ascertained further, that this longer diameter was +equal to the shorter diameter of the creature's frontal buckler, +measured across about two thirds of its entire length from the nape; and +that a transverse diameter of ten inches at this point was associated in +the buckler with a longitudinal diameter of fourteen inches from the +nape to the snout. Thus five inches along the nail represent fourteen +inches along the occipital shield. The proportion, however, which the +latter bore to the entire body in this genus has still to be determined. +The corresponding frontal shield in the Coccosteus was equal to about +one-fifth the creature's entire length, and in the Osteolepis and +Diplopterus, to nearly one-seventh its length; while the length of the +_Glyptolepis leptopterus_, a fish of the same family as the Asterolepis, +was about five and a half times that of its occipital shield. If the +Asterolepis was formed in the proportions of the Diplopterus, the +ancient individual to which this nail-like bone belonged must have been +about eight feet two inches in length; but if moulded, as it more +probably was, in the proportions of the Glyptolepis, only six feet five +inches. All the Coelacanths, however, were exceedingly massive in +proportion to their length; they were fish built in the square, +muscular, thick-set, Dirk-Hatterick and Balfour-of-Burley style; and of +the Russian specimens, some of the larger bones must have belonged to +individuals of from twice to thrice the length of the Stromness one. + +Passing upwards along the strata, step by step, as along a fallen stair, +each stratum presenting a nearly perpendicular front, but losing, in the +downward slant of the _tread_, as a carpenter would say, the height +attained in the _rise_, I came, about a quarter of a mile farther to the +west, and several hundred feet higher in the formation, upon a fissile +dark-colored bed, largely charged with ichthyolites. The fish I found +ranged in three layers,--the lower layer consisting almost exclusively +of Dipterians, chiefly Osteolepides; the middle layer, of Acanthodians, +of the genera Cheiracanthus and Diplacanthus; and the upper layer, of +Cephalaspides, mostly of one species, the _Coccosteus decipiens_. I +found exactly the same arrangement in a bed considerably higher in the +system, which occurs a full mile farther on,--the Dipterians at the +bottom, the Acanthodians in the middle, and the Cephalaspides atop; and +was informed by Mr. William Watt, a competent authority in the case, +that the arrangement is comparatively a common one in the quarries of +Orkney. How account for the phenomenon? How account for the three +storeys, and the apportionment of the floors, like those of a great +city, each to its own specific class of society? Why should the first +floor be occupied by Osteolepides, the second by Cheiracanthi and their +congeners, and the third by Coccostei? Was the arrangement an effect of +normal differences in the constitutions of the several families, +operated upon by some deleterious gas or mineral poison, which, though +it eventually destroyed the whole, did not so simultaneously, but +consecutively,--the families of weakest constitution first, and the +strongest last? Or were they exterminated by some disease, that seized +upon the families, not at once, but in succession? Or did they visit the +locality serially, as the haddock now visits our coasts in spring, and +the herring towards the close of summer; and were then killed off, +whether by poison or disease, as they came? These are questions which +may never be conclusively answered. It is well, however, to observe, as +a curious geological fact, that peculiar arrangement of the fossils by +which they are suggested, and to record the various instances in which +it occurs. The minerals which I remarked among the schists here as most +abundant are a kind of black ironstone, exceedingly tough and hard, +occurring in detached masses, and a variety of bright pyrites +disseminated among the darker flagstones, either as irregularly-formed, +brassy-looking concretions of small size, or spread out on their +surfaces in thin leaf-like films, that resemble, in some of the +specimens, the icy-foliage with which a severe frost encrusts a +window-pane. Still further on I came upon a vein of galena; but a +miner's excavation in the solid rock, a little above high-water mark, +quite as dark and nearly as narrow as a fox-earth, showed me that it had +been known long before, and, as the workings seemed to have been +deserted for ages, known to but little purpose. The crystals of ore, +small and thinly scattered, are embedded in a matrix of barytes, +stromnite, and other kindred minerals, and the thickness of the entire +vein is not very considerable. I have since learned, from the +"Statistical Account of the Parish of Sandwick," that the workings of +the mine penetrate into the rock for about a hundred yards, but that it +has been long abandoned, "as a speculation which would not pay." + +I observed scattered over the beach, in the neighborhood of the lead +mine, considerable quantities of the hard chalk of England; and, judging +there could be no deposits of the hard chalk in this neighborhood, I +addressed myself on my way back, to a kelp-burner engaged in wrapping up +his fire for the night with a thick covering of weed, to ascertain how +it had come there. "Ah, master," he replied, "that chalk is all that +remains of a fine large English vessel, that was knocked to pieces here +a few years ago. She was ballasted with the chalk; and as it is a light +sort of stone, the surf has washed it ashore from that low reef in the +middle of the tideway where she struck and broke up. Most of the +sailors, poor fellows, lie in the old churchyard, beside the broken ruin +yonder. It is a deadly shore this to seafaring-men." I had understood +that the kelp-trade was wholly at an end in Orkney; and, remarking that +the sea-weed which he employed was chiefly of one kind,--the long brown +fronds of tang dried in the sun,--I inquired of him to what purpose the +substance was now employed, seeing that barilla and the carbonate of +soda had supplanted it in the manufacture of soap and glass, and why he +was so particular in selecting his weed. "It's some valuable medicine," +he said, "that's made of the kelp now: I forget its name; but it's used +for bad sores and cancer; and we must be particular in our weed, for +it's not every kind of weed that has the medicine in't. There's most of +it, we're told, in the leaves of the tang." "Is the name of the drug," I +asked, "iodine?" "Ay, that must be just it," he replied,--"iodine; but +it doesn't make such a demand for kelp as the glass and the soap." I +afterwards learned that the kelp-burner's character of this strip of +coast, as peculiarly fatal to the mariner, was borne out by many a sad +casualty, too largely charged with the wild and the horrible to be +lightly forgotten. The respected Free Church clergyman of Stromness, Mr. +Learmonth, informed me that, ere the Disruption, while yet minister of +the parish, there were on one sad occasion eight dead bodies carried of +a Sabbath morning to his manse door. Some of the incidents connected +with these terrible shipwrecks, as related with much graphic effect by a +boatman who carried me across the sound, on an exploratory ramble to the +island of Hoy, struck me as of a character considerably beyond the reach +of the mere dealer in fiction. The master of one hapless vessel, a young +man, had brought his wife and only child with him on the voyage destined +to terminate so mournfully; and when the vessel first struck, he had +rushed down to the cabin to bring them both on deck, as their only +chance of safety. He had, however, unthinkingly shut the cabin-door +after him; a second tremendous blow, as not unfrequently happens in +such cases, so affected the framework of the sides and deck, that the +door was jammed fast in its frame. And long ere it could be cut +open,--for no human hand could unfasten it,--the vessel had filled to +the beams, and neither the master nor his wife and child were ever seen +more. In another ship, wrecked within a cable-length of the beach, the +mate, a man of Herculean proportions, and a skilful swimmer, stripped +and leaped overboard, not doubting his ability to reach the shore. But +he had failed to remark what in such circumstances is too often +forgotten, that the element on which he flung himself, beaten into foam +against the shallows, was, according to Mr. Bremner's shrewd definition, +not water, but a mixture of water and air, specifically lighter than the +human body; and so at the shore, though so close at hand, he never +arrived, disappearing almost at the vessel's side. "The ground was +rough," said my informant, "and the sea ran mountains high; and I can +scarce tell you how I shuddered on finding, long ere his corpse was +thrown up, his two eyes detached from their sockets, staring from a +wreath of sea-weed." There is in this last circumstance, horrible enough +surely for the wildest German tale ever written, a unique singularity, +which removes it beyond the reach of invention. + +At my inn I found a pressing invitation awaiting me from the Free Church +manse, which I was urged to make my home so long as I remained in that +part of the country. A geologist, however, fairly possessed by the +enthusiasm without which weak man can accomplish nothing,--whether he be +a deer-stalker or mammoth-fancier, or angle for live salmon or dead +Pterichthyes,--has a trick of forgetting the right times of dining and +taking tea, and of throwing the burden of his bodily requirements on +early extempore breakfasts and late suppers; and so reporting myself a +man of irregular habits and bad hours, whose movements could not in the +least be depended upon, I had to decline the hospitality which would +fain have adopted me as its guest, notwithstanding the badness of the +character that, in common honesty, I had to certify as my own. Next +morning I breakfasted at the manse, and was introduced by Mr. Learmonth +to two gentlemen of the place, who had been kindly invited to meet with +me, and who, from their acquaintance with the geology of the district +enabled me to make the best use of my time, by cutting direct on those +cliffs and quarries in the neighborhood in which organic remains had +been detected, instead of wearily re-discovering them for myself. There +is a small but interesting museum in Stromness, rich in the fossils of +the locality; and I began the geologic business of the day by devoting +an hour to the examination of its organisms, chiefly ichthyolites. I saw +among them several good specimens of the genus Pterichthys, and of what +is elsewhere one of the rarer genera of the Dipterians,--the +Diplopterus. A well-marked individual of the latter genus had, I found, +been misnamed Dipterus by some geological visitor who had recently come +the way,--a mistake which, as in both ichthyolites the fins are +similarly placed, occasionally occurs, but which may be easily avoided, +when the specimens are in a tolerable state of preservation, by taking +note of a few well-marked characteristics by which the genera are +distinguished. In both Dipterus and Diplopterus the bright enamel of the +scales was thickly punctulated by microscopic points,--the exterior +terminations of funnel-shaped openings, that communicated between the +surface and the cells of the middle table of the scale; but the form of +the scales themselves was different,--that of the Dipterus being nearly +circular, and that of the Diplopterus, save on the dorsal ridge, +rhomboidal. Again, the lateral line of the Diplopterus was a raised +line, running as a ridge along the scales; whereas that of the Dipterus +was a depressed one, existing as a furrow. Their heads, too, were +covered by an entirely dissimilar arrangement of plates. The rounded +snout-plate of the Diplopterus was suddenly contracted to nearly +one-half its breadth by two semi-circular inflections, which formed the +orbits of the eyes; full in the centre, a little above these, a minute, +lozenge-shaped plate seemed as if inlaid in the larger one, the +analogue, apparently, of the anterior frontal; and over all there +expanded a broad plate, the superior frontal, half divided vertically by +a line drawn downwards from the nape, which, however, stopped short in +the middle; and fretted transversely by two small but deeply-indented +rectangular marks, which, crossing from the central to two lateral +plates, assumed the semblance of connecting pins. The snout of the +Dipterus was less round; it bore no mark of the eye-orbits; and the +frontal buckler, broader in proportion to its length than that of the +Diplopterus, consisted of many more plates. I may here mention that the +frontal buckler of Diplopterus has not yet been figured nor described; +whereas that of Dipterus, though unknown as such, has been given to the +world as the occipital covering of a supposed Cephalaspian,--the +Polyphractus. Polyphractus is, however, in reality a synonym for +Dipterus,--the one name being derived from a peculiarity of the animal's +fins: the other, from the great number of its occipital plates. There is +no science founded on mere observation that can be altogether free, in +its earlier stages, from mistakes of this character,--mistakes to which +the palaeontologist, however skilful, is peculiarly liable. The teeth of +the two genera were essentially different. Those of the Dipterus, +exclusively palatal, were blunt and squat, and ranged in two +rectangular patches;[22] while those of the Diplopterus bristled along +its jaws and were slender and sharp. Their tails, too, though both +heterocercal, were diverse in their type. In each, an angular strip of +gradually-diminishing scales,--a prolongation of the scaly coat which +protected the body, and which covered here a prolongation of the +vertebral column,--ran on to the extreme termination of the upper lobe; +but there was in the Diplopterus a greatly larger development of fin on +the superior or dorsal side of the scaly strip than on that of the +Dipterus. If the caudal fin of the Osteolepis be divided longitudinally +into six equal parts, it will be found that one of these occurs on the +upper side of the vertebral prolongation, and five on the under; in the +caudal fin of the Diplopterus so divided, rather more than _two_ parts +will be found to occur on the upper side, and rather less than four on +the under; while in the caudal fin of the Dipterus the development seems +to have been restricted to the under side exclusively; at least, in none +of the many individuals which I have examined have I found any trace of +caudal rays on the upper side. These are minute and somewhat trivial +particulars; but the geologist may find them of use; and the +non-geologist may be disposed to extend to them some little degree of +tolerance, when he considers that they distinguished two largely +developed genera of animals, to which the Author of all did not deem it +unworthy his wisdom to impart, in the act of creation, certain marked +points of resemblance, and other certain points of dissimilarity. + +From the Museum, accompanied by one of the gentlemen to whom Mr. +Learmonth had introduced me at breakfast, and who obligingly undertook +to act as my guide on the occasion, I set out to visit a remarkable +stack on the sea-coast, about four miles north and west of Stromness. We +scaled together the steep granitic hill immediately over the town, and +then cut on the stack, straight as the bird flies, across a trackless +common, bare and stony, and miserably pared by the _flaughter_ spade. +The landed proprietors in this part of the mainland are very numerous, +and their properties small; and there are vast breadths of undivided +common that encircle their little estates, as the Atlantic encircles the +Orkneys. But the state in which I found the unappropriated parts of the +district had in no degree the effect of making me an opponent of +appropriation or the landholders. Our country, had it been left as a +whole to all its people, as the Communist desiderates, would ere now be +of exceedingly little value to any portion of them. The soil of the +Orkney commons has been so repeatedly pared off and carried away for +fuel, that there are now wide tracts on which there is no more soil to +pare, and which present, for the original covering of peaty mould, a +continuous surface of pale boulder-clay, here and there mottled by +detached tufts of scraggy heath, and here and there roughened by +projections of the underlying rock. All is unredeemable barrenness. On +the other hand, wherever a bit of private property appears, though in +the immediate neighborhood of these ruined wastes, the surface is +swarded over, and the soil is the better, not the worse, for the +services which it has rendered to man in the past. Whatever the Chartist +and the Leveller may think of the matter, it is, I find, virtually on +behalf of the many that the soil has been appropriated by the few. After +passing from off the tract of moor which overlies the granitic axis of +the district, to a tract equally moory which spreads over the gray +flagstones, I marked, more especially in the hollows and ravines, where +minute springs ooze from the rock, vast quantities of bog-iron embedded +in the soil, and presenting greatly the appearance of the scoria of a +smith's forge. The apparent scoria here is simply a reproduction of the +iron of the underlying flagstones, transferred, through the agency of +water, to that stratum of vegetable mould and boulder-clay which +represents the recent period. + +I found the stack which I had been brought to see forming the +picturesque centre of a bold tract of rock scenery. It stands out from +the land as a tall insulated tower, about two hundred feet in height, +sorely worn at its base by the breakers that ceaselessly fret against +its sides, but considerably broader atop, where it bears a flat cover of +sward on the same level with the tops of the precipices which in the +lapse of ages have receded from around it. Like the sward-crested +hammock left by a party of laborers, to mark the depth to which they +have cut in removing a bank or digging a pond, it remains to indicate +how the attrition of the surf has told upon the iron-bound coast; +demonstrating that lines of precipices hard as iron, and of giddy +elevation, are in full retreat before the dogged perseverance of an +assailant that, though baffled in each single attack, ever returns to +the charge, and gains by an aggregation of infinitesimals,--the result +of the whole. From the edge of a steep promontory that commands an +inflection of the coast, and of the wall of rock which sweeps round it, +I watched for a few seconds the sea,--greatly heightened at the time by +the setting in of the flood-tide,--as it broke, surge after surge, +against the base of the tall dark precipices; and marked how it +accomplished its work of disintegration. The flagstone deposit here +abounds in vertical cracks and flaws; and in the line of each of the +many fissures which these form the waves have opened up a cave; so that +for hundreds of yards together the precipices seem as if founded on +arch-divided piers, and remind one of those ancient prints or drawings +of Old London Bridge in which a range of tall sombre buildings is +represented as rising high over a line of arches; or of rows of lofty +houses in those cities of southern Europe in which the dwellings +fronting the streets are perforated beneath by lines of squat piazzas, +and present above a dingy and windowless breadth of wall. In course of +time the piers attenuate and give way; the undermined precipices topple +down, parting from the solid mass behind in those vertical lines by +which they are traversed at nearly right angles with their line of +stratification; the perpendicular front which they had covered comes to +be presented, in consequence, to the sea; its faults and cracks +gradually widen into caves, as those of the fallen front had gradually +widened at an earlier period; in the lapse of centuries, it too, +resigning its place, topples over headlong, an undermined mass; the +surge dashes white and furious where the dense rock had rested before; +and thus, in its slow but irresistible march, the sea gains upon the +land. In the peculiar disposition and character of the prevailing strata +of Orkney, as certainly as in the power of the tides which sweep athwart +its coasts, and the wide extent of sea which, stretching around it, +gives the waves scope to gather bulk and momentum, may be found the +secret of the extraordinary height to which the surf sometimes rises +against its walls of rock. During the fiercer tempests, masses of foam +shoot upwards against the precipices, like inverted cataracts, fully two +hundred feet over the ordinary tide-level, and, washing away the looser +soil from their summits, leaves in its place patches of slaty gravel, +resembling that of a common sea-beach. Rocks less perpendicular, +however great the violence of the wind and sea, would fail to project +upwards bodies of surf to a height so extraordinary. But the low angle +at which the strata lie, and the rectangularity maintained in relation +to their line of bed by the fissures which traverse them, give to the +Orkney precipices,--remarkable for their perpendicularity and their +mural aspect,--exactly the angle against which the waves, as broken +masses of foam, beat up to their greatest possible altitude. On a tract +of iron-bound coast that skirts the entrance of the Cromarty Frith I +have seen the surf rise, during violent gales from the north-west +especially, against one rectangular rock, known as the White Rock, fully +an hundred feet; while against scarcely any of the other precipices, +more sloping, though equally exposed, did it rise more than half that +height. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + Detached Fossils--Remains of the Pterichthys--Terminal Bones of the + Coccosteus, etc., preserved--Internal Skeleton of Coccosteus--The + shipwrecked Sailor in the Cave--Bishop Grahame--His Character, as + drawn by Baillie--His Successor--Ruins of the Bishop's + Country-house--Sub-aerial Formation of Sandstone--Formation near + New Kaye--Inference from such Formation--Tour resumed--Loch of + Stennis--Waters of the Loch fresh, brackish, and salt--Vegetation + varied accordingly--Change produced in the Flounder by fresh + water--The Standing Stones, second only to Stonehenge--Their + purpose--Their Appearance and Situation--Diameter of the + Circle--What the Antiquaries say of it--Reference to it in the + "Pirate"--Dr. Hibbert's Account. + + +We returned to Stromness along the edge of the cliffs gradually +descending from higher to lower ranges of prepices, and ever and anon +detecting ichthyolite beds in the weathered and partially decomposed +strata. As the rock moulders into an incoherent clay, the fossils which +it envelops become not unfrequently wholly detached from it, so that, on +a smart blow dealt by the hammer, they leap out entire, resembling, from +the degree of compression which they exhibit, those mimic fishes carved +out of plates of ivory or of mother-of-pearl, which are used as counters +in some of the games of China or the East Indies. The material of which +they are composed, a brittle jet, though better suited than the stone to +resist the disintegrating influences, is in most cases greatly too +fragile for preservation. One may, however, acquire from the fragments a +knowledge of certain minute points in the structure of the ancient +animals to which they belonged, respecting which specimens of a more +robust texture give no evidence. The plates of Coccosteus sometimes +spring out as unbroken as when they covered the living animal, and, if +the necessary skill be not wanting, may be set up in their original +order. And I possess specimens of the head of Dipterus in which the +nearly circular gill-covers may be examined on both surfaces, interior +and exterior, and in which the cranial portion shows not only the +enamelled plates of the frontal buckler, but also the strange mechanism +of the palatal teeth, with the intervening cavities that had lodged both +the brain and the occipital part of the spine. The fossils on the top of +the cliffs here are chiefly Dipterians of the two closely allied genera, +Diplopterus and Osteolepis. + +A little farther on, I found, on a hill-side in which extensive +slate-quarries had once been wrought, the remains of Pterichthys +existing as mere patches, from which the color had been discharged, but +in which the almost human-like outline of both body and arms were still +distinctly traceable; and farther on still, where the steep wall of +cliffs sinks into a line of grassy banks, I saw in yet another quarry, +ichthyolites of all the three great ganoid families so characteristic of +the Old Red,--Cephalaspians, Dipterians, and Acanthodians,--ranged in +the three-storied order to which I have already referred as so +inexplicable. The specimens, however, though numerous, are not fine. +They are resolved into a brittle bituminous coal, resembling hard pitch +or black wax, which is always considerably less tenacious than the +matrix in which they are inclosed; and so, when laid open by the hammer, +they usually split through the middle of the plates and scales, instead +of parting from the stone at their surfaces, and resemble, in +consequence, those dark, shadow-like profiles taken in Indian ink by the +limner, which exhibit a correct outline, but no details. We find, +however, in some of the genera, portions of the animal preserved that +are rarely seen in a state of keeping equally perfect in the +ichthyolites of Cromarty, Moray, or Banff,--those terminal bones of the +Coccosteos, for instance, that were prolonged beyond the plates by which +the head and upper parts of the body were covered. Wherever the +ichthyolites are inclosed in nodules, as in the more southerly counties +over which the deposit extends, the nodule terminates, in almost every +case, with the massier portions of the organism; for the thinner parts, +too inconsiderable to have served as attractive nuclei to the stony +matter when the concretion was forming, were left outside its pale, and +so have been lost; whereas, in the northern districts of the deposit, +where the fossils, as in Caithness and Orkney, occur in flagstone, these +slimmer parts, when the general state of keeping is tolerably good, lie +spread out on the planes of the slabs, entire often in their minutest +rays and articulations. The numerous Coccostei of this quarry exhibit, +attached to their upper plates, their long vertebral columns, of many +joints, that, depending from the broad dorsal shields of the +ichthyolite, remind one of those skeleton fishes one sometimes sees on +the shores of a fishing village, in which the bared backbone joints on, +cord-like, to the broad plates of the skull. None of the other fishes of +the Old Red Sandstone possessed an internal skeleton so decidedly +osseous as that of the Coccosteus, and none of them presented externally +so large an extent of naked skin,--provisions which probably went +together. For about three-fifths of the entire length of the animal the +surface was unprotected by dermal plates; and the muscles must have +found the fulcrums on which they acted in the internal skeleton +exclusively. And hence a necessity for greater strength in their +interior framework than in that of fishes as strongly fenced round +externally by scales or plates as the coleoptera by their elytrine, or +the crustacea by their shells. Even in the Coccosteus, however, the +ossification was by no means complete; and the analogies of the skeleton +seem to have allied it rather with the skeletons of the sturgeon family +than with the skeletons of the sharks or rays. The processes of the +vertebrae were greatly more solid in their substance than the vertebrae +themselves,--a condition which in the sharks and rays is always +reversed; and they frequently survive, each with its little sprig of +bone, formed like the letter Y, that attached it to its centrum, +projecting from it, in specimens from which the vertebral column itself +has wholly disappeared. I found frequent traces, during my exploratory +labors in Orkney, of the dorsal and ventral fins of this ichthyolite; +but no trace whatever of the pectorals or of the caudal fin. There seem +to have been no pectorals; and the tail, as I have always had occasion +to remark, was apparently a mere point, unfurnished with rays. + +In descending from the cliffs upon the quarries, my companion pointed to +an angular notch in the rock-edge, apparently the upper termination of +one of the numerous vertical cracks by which the precipices are +traversed, and which in so many cases on the Orkney coast have been +hollowed by the waves into long open coves or deep caverns. It was up +there, he said, that about twelve years ago the sole survivor of a +ship's crew contrived to scramble, four days after his vessel had been +dashed to fragments against the rocks below, and when it was judged that +all on board had perished. The vessel was wrecked on a Wednesday. She +had been marked, when in the offing, standing for the bay of Stromness; +but the storm was violent, and the shore a lee one; and as it was seen +from the beach that she could scarce weather the headland yonder, a +number of people gathered along the cliffs, furnished with ropes, to +render to the crew whatever assistance might be possible in the +circumstances. Human help, however, was to avail them nothing. Their +vessel, a fine schooner, when within forty yards of the promontory, was +seized broadside by an enormous wave, and dashed against the cliff, as +one might dash a glass-phial against a stone-wall. One blow completed +the work of destruction; she went rolling in entire from keel to +mast-head, and returned, on the recoil of the broken surge, a mass of +shapeless fragments, that continued to dance idly amid the foam, or were +scattered along the beach. But of the poor men, whom the spectators had +seen but a few seconds before running wildly about the deck, there +remained not a trace; and the saddened spectators returned to their +homes to say that all had perished. Four days after,--on the morning of +the following Sabbath,--the sole survivor of the crew, saved, as if by +miracle, climbed up the precipice, and presented himself to a group of +astonished and terrified country people, who could scarce regard him as +a creature of this world. The fissure, which at the top of the cliff +forms but a mere angular inflection, is hollowed below into a low-roofed +cave of profound depth, into the farther extremity of which the tide +hardly ever penetrates. It is floored by a narrow strip of shingly +beach; and on this bit of beach, far within the cave, the sailor found +himself, half a minute after the vessel had struck and gone to pieces, +washed in, he knew not how. Two pillows and a few dozen red herrings, +which had been swept in along with him, served him for bed and board; a +tin cover enabled him to catch enough of the fresh-water droppings of +the roof to quench his thirst; several large fragments of wreck that had +been jammed fast athwart the opening of the cave broke the violence of +the wind and sea; and in that doleful prison, day after day, he saw the +tides sink and rise, and lay, when the surf rolled high at the fall of +the tide, in utter darkness even at mid-day, as the waves outside rose +to the roof, and inclosed him in a chamber as entirely cut off from the +external atmosphere as that of a diving bell. He was oppressed in the +darkness, every time the waves came rolling in and compressed his +modicum of air, by a sensation of extreme heat,--an effect of the +condensation; and then, in the interval of recession, and consequent +expansion, by a sudden chill. At low ebb he had to work hard in clearing +away the accumulations of stone and gravel which had been rolled in by +the previous tide, and threatened to bury him up altogether. At length +he succeeded, after many a fruitless attempt, in gaining an upper ledge +that overhung his prison-mouth; and, by a path on which a goat would +scarce have found footing, he scrambled to the top. His name was +Johnstone; and the cave is still known as "Johnstone's Cave." Such was +the narrative of my companion. + +A little farther on, the undulating bank, into which the cliffs sink, +projects into the sea as a flat green promontory, edged with hills of +indurated sand, and topped by a picturesque ruin, that forms a pleasing +object in the landscape. The ruin is that of a country residence of the +bishops of Orkney during the disturbed and unhappy reign of Scotch +Episcopacy, and bears on a flat tablet of weathered sandstone the +initials of its founder, Bishop George Grahame, and the date of its +erection, 1633. With a green cultivated oasis immediately around it, and +a fine open sound, overlooked by the bold, picturesque cliffs of Hoy, in +front, it must have been, for at least half the year, an agreeable, and, +as its remains testify, a not uncomfortable habitation. But I greatly +fear Scottish clergymen of the Establishment, whether Presbyterian or +Episcopalian, when obnoxious, from their position or their tenets, to +the great bulk of the Scottish people, have not been left, since at +least the Reformation, to enjoy either quiet or happy lives, however +extrinsically favorable the circumstances in which they may have been +placed. Bishop Grahame, only five years after the date of the erection, +was tried before the famous General Assembly of 1638; and, being +convicted of having "all the ordinar faults of a bishop," he was +deposed, and ordered within a limited time "to give tokens of +repentance, under paine of excommunication." "He was a curler on the ice +on the Sabbath day," says Baillie,--"a setter of tacks to his sones and +grandsones, to the prejudice of the Church; he oversaw adulterie; +slighted charming; neglected preaching and doing of anie good; and held +portions of ministers' stipends for building his cathedral." The +concluding portion of his life, after his deposition, was spent in +obscurity; nor did his successor in the bishoprick, subsequent to the +reestablishment of Episcopacy at the Restoration,--Bishop +Honeyman,--close his days more happily. He was struck in the arm by the +bullet which the zealot Mitchell had intended for Archbishop Sharp; and +the shattered bone never healed; "for, though he lived some years +after," says Burnet, "_they_ were forced to lay open the wound every +year, for an exfoliation;" and his life was eventually shortened by his +sufferings. All seemed comfortable enough, and quite quiet enough, in +the bishop's country-house to-day. There were two cows quietly chewing +the cud in what apparently had been the dignitary's sitting-room, and +patiently awaiting the services of a young woman who was approaching at +some little distance with a pail. A large gray cat, that had been +sunning herself in a sheltered corner of the court-yard, started up at +our approach, and disappeared through a slit hole. The sun, now gone far +down the sky, shone brightly on shattered gable-tops, and roofless, +rough-edged walls, revealing many a flaw and chasm in the yielding +masonry; and their shadows fell with picturesque effect on the loose +litter, rude implements, and gapped dry-stone fence, of the neglected +farm-yard which surrounds the building. + +I have said that the flat promontory occupied by the ruin is edged by +hills of indurated sand. Existing in some places as a continuous bed of +a soft gritty sandstone, scooped wave-like a-top, and varying from five +to eight feet in thickness, they form a curious example of a sub-aerial +formation,--the sand of which they are composed having been all blown +from the sea-beach, and consolidated by the action of moisture on a +calcareous mixture of comminuted shells, which forms from twenty to +twenty-five per cent. of their entire mass. I found that the sections of +the bed laid open by the encroachments of the sea, were scarce less +regularly stratified than those of a subaqueous deposit, and that it was +hollowed, where most exposed to the weather, into a number of spherical +cells, which gave to those parts of the surface where they lay thickest, +somewhat the aspect of a rude Runic fret-work,--an appearance not +uncommon in weathered sandstones. With more time to spare, I could fain +have studied the deposit more carefully, in the hope of detecting a few +peculiarities of structure sufficient to distinguish sub-aerially-formed +from subaqueously-deposited beds of stone. Sandstones of sub-aerial +formation are of no very unfrequent occurrence among the recent +deposits. On the coast of Cornwall there are cliffs of considerable +height that extend for several miles, and have attained a degree of +solidity sufficient to serve the commoner purposes of the architect, +which at one time existed as accumulations of blown sand. "It is around +the promontory of New Kaye," says Dr. Paris, in an interesting memoir on +the subject, "that the most extensive formation of sandstone takes +place. Here it may be seen in different stages of induration, from a +state in which it is too friable to be detached from the rock upon which +it reposes, to a hardness so considerable, that it requires a violent +blow from a sledge-hammer to break it. Buildings are here constructed of +it; the church of Cranstock is entirely built with it; and it is also +employed for various articles of domestic and agricultural uses. The +geologist who has previously examined the celebrated specimen from +Guadaloupe will be struck with the great analogy which it bears to this +formation." Now, as vast tracts of the earth's surface,--in some parts +of the world, as in Northern Africa, millions of square miles +together,--are at present overlaid by accumulations of sand, which have +this tendency to consolidate and become lasting sub-aerial formations, +destined to occupy a place among the future strata of the globe, it +seems impossible but that also in the old geologic periods there must +have been, as now, sand-wastes and sub-aerial formations. And as the +representatives of these may still exist in some of our sandstone +quarries, it might be well to be possessed of a knowledge of the +peculiarities by which they are to be distinguished from deposits of +subaqueous origin. In order that I might have an opportunity of studying +these peculiarities where they are to be seen more extensively developed +than elsewhere on the eastern coast of Scotland, I here formed the +intention of spending a day, on my return south, among the sand-wastes +of Moray,--a purpose which I afterwards carried into effect. But of that +more anon. + +On the following morning, availing myself of a kind invitation, through +Dr. Garson, from his brother, a Free Church minister resident in an +inland district of the Mainland, in convenient neighborhood with the +northern coasts of the island, and with several quarries, I set out +from Stromness, taking in my way the Loch and Standing Stones of +Stennis, which I had previously seen from but my seat in the mail-gig as +I passed. Mr. Learmonth, who had to visit some of his people in this +direction, accompanied me for several miles along the shores of the +loch, and lightened the journey by his interesting snatches of local +history, suggested by the various objects that lay along our +road,--buildings, tumuli, ancient battle-fields, and standing stones. +The loch itself, an expansive sheet of water fourteen miles in +circumference, I contemplated with much interest, and longed for an +opportunity of studying its natural history. Two promontories,--those +occupied by the Standing Stones, shoot out from the opposite sides, and +approach so near as to be connected by a rustic bridge. They divide the +loch into two nearly equal parts, the lower of which gives access to the +sea, and is salt in its nether reaches and brackish in its upper ones, +while the higher is merely brackish in its nether reaches, and fresh +enough in its upper ones to be potable. The shores of both were strewed, +at the time I passed, by a line of wrack, consisting, for the first few +miles, from where the lower loch opens to the sea, of only marine +plants, then of marine plants mixed with those of fresh-water growth, +and then, in the upper sheet of water, of lacustrine plants exclusively. +And the fauna of the loch, like its flora, is, I was led to understand, +of the same mixed character; the marine and fresh-water animals having +each their own reaches, with certain debatable tracts between, in which +each expatiates with more or less freedom, according to its nature and +constitution,--some of the sea-fishes advancing far on the fresh water, +and others, among the proper denizens of the lake, encroaching far on +the salt. The common fresh-water eel strikes out, I was told, farthest +into the sea-water; in which, indeed, reversing the habits of the +salmon, it is known in various places to deposit its spawn; it seeks, +too, impatient of a low temperature, to escape from the cold of winter, +by taking refuge in water brackish enough in a climate such as ours to +resist the influence of frost. Of the marine fishes; on the other hand, +I found that the flounder got greatly higher than any of the others, +inhabiting reaches of the lake almost entirely fresh. A memoir on the +Loch of Stennis and its productions, animal and vegetable, such as a +Gilbert White of Selborne could produce, would be at once a very +valuable and very curious document. By dividing it into reaches, in +which the average saltness of the water was carefully ascertained, and +its productions noted, with the various modifications which these +underwent as they receded upwards or downwards from their proper habitat +towards the line at which they could no longer exist, much information +might be acquired, of a kind important to the naturalist, and not +without its use to the geological student. I have had an opportunity +elsewhere of observing a curious change which fresh-water induces on the +flounder. In the brackish water of an estuary it becomes, without +diminishing in general size, thicker and more fleshy than when in its +legitimate habitat the sea; but the flesh loses in quality what it gains +in quantity;--it is flabby and insipid, and the margin-fin lacks always +its delicious strip of transparent fat. I fain wish that some +intelligent resident on the shores of Stennis would set himself +carefully to examine its productions, and that then, after registering +his observations for a few years, he would favor the world with its +natural history. + +The Standing Stones,--second in Britain of their kind, to only those of +Stonehenge,--occur in two groups; the smaller group (composed, however, +of the taller stones) on the southern promontory; the larger on the +northern one. Rude and shapeless, and bearing no other impress of the +designing faculty than that they are stuck endwise in the earth, and +form, as a whole, regular figures on the sward, there is yet a sublime +solemnity about them, unsurpassed in effect by any ruin I have yet seen, +however grand in its design or imposing in its proportions. Their very +rudeness, associated with their ponderous bulk and weight, adds to their +impressiveness. When there is art and taste enough in a country to hew +an ornate column, no one marvels that there should also be mechanical +skill enough in it to set it up on end; but the men who tore from the +quarry these vast slabs, some of them eighteen feet in height over the +soil, and raised them where they now stand, must have been ignorant +savages, unacquainted with machinery, and unfurnished, apparently, with +a single tool. And what, when contemplating their handiwork, we have to +subtract in idea from their minds, we add, by an involuntary process, to +their bodies: we come to regard the feats which they have accomplished +as performed by a power not mechanical, but gigantic. The consideration, +too, that these remains,--eldest of the works of man in this +country,--should have so long survived all definite tradition of the +purposes which they were raised to serve, so that we now merely know +regarding them that they were religious in their uses,--products of that +ineradicable instinct of man's nature which leads him in so many various +ways to attempt conciliating the Powers of another world,--serves +greatly to heighten their effect. History at the time of their erection +had no existence in these islands: the age, though it sought, through +the medium of strange, unknown rites, to communicate with Heaven, was +not knowing enough to communicate, through the medium of alphabet or +symbol, with posterity. The appearance of the obelisks, too, harmonizes +well with their great antiquity and the obscurity of their origin. For +about a man's height from the ground they are covered thick by the +shorter lichens,--chiefly the gray-stone parmelia,--here and there +embroidered by golden-hued patches of the yellow parmelia of the wall; +but their heads and shoulders, raised beyond the reach alike of the +herd-boy and of his herd, are covered by an extraordinary profusion of a +flowing beard-like lichen of unusual length,--the lichen _calicarus_ +(or, according to modern botanists, _Ramalina scopulorum_), in which +they look like an assemblage of ancient Druids, mysteriously stern and +invincibly silent and shaggy as the bard of Gray, when + + "Loose his beard and hoary hair + Streamed like a meteor on the troubled air." + +The day was perhaps too sunny and clear for seeing the Standing Stones +to the best possible advantage. They could not be better placed than on +their flat promontories, surrounded by the broad plane of an extensive +lake, in a waste, lonely, treeless country, that presents no bold, +competing features to divert attention from them as the great central +objects of the landscape; but the gray of the morning, or an atmosphere +of fog and vapor, would have associated better with the mystic obscurity +of their history, their shaggy forms, and their livid tints, than the +glare of a cloudless sun, that brought out in hard, clear relief their +rude outlines, and gave to each its sharp dark patch of shadow. +Gray-colored objects, when tall and imposing, but of irregular form, are +seen always to most advantage in an uncertain light,--in fog or +frost-rime, or under a scowling sky, or, as Parnell well expresses it, +"amid the living gleams of night." They appeal, if I may so express +myself, to the sentiment of the ghostly and the spectral, and demand at +least a partial envelopment of the obscure. Burns, with the true tact of +the genuine poet, develops the sentiment almost instinctively in an +exquisite stanza in one of his less-known songs, "The Posey,"-- + + "The hawthorn I will pu', _wi' its locks o' siller gray_, + Where, _like an aged man, it stands at break o' day_." + +Scott, too, in describing these very stones, chooses the early morning +as the time in which to exhibit them, when they "stood in the gray light +of the dawning, like the phantom forms of antediluvian giants, who, +shrouded in the habiliments of the dead, come to revisit, by the pale +light, the earth which they had plagued with their oppression, and +polluted by their sins, till they brought down upon it the vengeance of +long-suffering heaven." On another occasion, he introduces them as +"glimmering, a grayish white, in the rising sun, and projecting far to +the westward their long gigantic shadows." And Malcolm, in the exercise +of a similar faculty with that of Burns and of Scott, surrounds them, in +his description, with a somewhat similar atmosphere of partial dimness +and obscurity:-- + + "The hoary rocks, of giant size, + That o'er the land in circles rise, + Of which tradition may not tell, + Fit circles for the wizard's spell, + Seen far _amidst the scowling storm_, + Seem each a tall and phantom form, + _As hurrying vapors o'er them flee,_ + Frowning in grim security, + While, like a dread voice from the past, + Around them moans the autumnal blast." + +There exist curious analogies between the earlier stages of society and +the more immature periods of life,--between the savage and the child; +and the huge circle of Stennis seems suggestive of one of these. It is +considerably more than four hundred feet in diameter, and the stones +which compose it, varying from three to fourteen feet in height, must +have been originally from thirty-five to forty in number, though only +sixteen now remain erect. A mound and fosse, still distinctly +traceable, run round the whole; and there are several mysterious-looking +tumuli outside, bulky enough to remind one of the lesser morains of the +geologist. But the circle, notwithstanding its imposing magnitude, is +but a huge child's house, after all,--one of those circles of stones +which children lay down on their village green, and then, in the +exercise of that imaginative faculty which distinguishes between the +young of the human animal and those of every other creature, convert, by +a sort of conventionalism, into a church or dwelling-house, within which +they seat themselves, and enact their imitations of their seniors, +whether domestic or ecclesiastical. The circle of Stennis was a circle, +say the antiquaries, devoted to the sun. The group of stones on the +southern promontory of the lake formed but a half-circle, and it was a +half-circle dedicated to the moon. To the circular sun the great rude +children of an immature age of the world had laid down a circle of +stones on the one promontory; to the moon, in her half-orbed state, they +had laid down a half-circle on the other; and in propitiating these +material deities, to whose standing in the old Scandinavian worship the +names of our _Sun_day and _Mon_day still testify, they employed in their +respective inclosures, in the exercise of a wild unregulated fancy, +uncouth irrational rites, the extremeness of whose folly was in some +measure concealed by the horrid exquisiteness of their cruelty. We are +still in the nonage of the species, and see human society sowing its +wild oats in a thousand various ways, very absurdly often, and often +very wickedly; but matters seem to have been greatly worse when, in an +age still more immature, the grimly-bearded, six-feet children of Orkney +were laying down their stone-circles on the green. Sir Walter, in the +parting scene between Cleveland and Minna Troil, which he describes as +having taken place amid the lesser group of stones, refers to an immense +slab "lying flat and prostrate in the middle of the others, supported +by short pillars, of which some relics are still visible," and which is +regarded as the sacrificial stone of the erection. "It is a current +belief," says Dr. Hibbert, in an elaborate paper in the "Transactions of +the Scottish Antiquaries," that upon this stone a victim of royal birth +was immolated. Halfdan the Long-legged, the son of Harold the +Fair-haired, in punishment for the aggressions of Orkney, had made an +unexpected descent upon its coasts, and acquired possession of the +Jarldom. In the autumn succeeding Halfdan was retorted upon, and, after +an inglorious contest, betook himself to a place of concealment, from +which he was the following morning unlodged, and instantly doomed to the +Asae. Einar, the Jarl of Orkney, with his sword carved the captive's back +into the form of an eagle, the spine being longitudinally divided, and +the ribs being separated by a transverse cut as far as the loins. He +then extracted the lungs, and dedicated them to Odin for a perpetuity of +victory, singing a wild song,--'I am revenged for the slaughter of +Rognvalld: this have the Nornae decreed. In my fiording the pillar of the +people has fallen. Build up the cairn, ye active youths, for victory is +with us. From the stones of the sea-shore will I pay the Long-legged a +hard seat.' There is certainly no trace to be detected, in this dark +story, of a golden age of the world: the golden age is, I would fain +hope, an age yet to come. There at least exists no evidence that it is +an age gone by. It will be the full-grown _manly_ age of the world when +the race, as such, shall have attained to their years of discretion. +They are at present in their froward boyhood, playing at the mischievous +games of war, and diplomacy, and stock-gambling, and site-refusing, and +it is not quite agreeable for quiet honest people to be living amongst +them. But there would be nothing gained by going back to that more +infantine state of society in which the Jarl Einar carved into a red +eagle the back of Halfdan the Long-legged. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + On Horseback--A pared Moor--Small Landholders--Absorption of small + holdings in England and Scotland--Division of Land favorable to + Civil and Religious Rights--Favorable to social Elevation--An + inland Parish--The Landsman and Lobster--Wild Flowers of + Orkney--Law of Compensation illustrated by the Tobacco + Plant--Poverty tends to Productiveness--Illustrated in + Ireland--Profusion of Ichthyolites--Orkney a land of Defunct + Fishes--Sandwick--A Collection of Coccostean Flags--A Quarry full + of Heads of Dipteri--The Bergil, or Striped Wrasse--Its Resemblance + to the Dipterus--Poverty of the Flora of the Lower Old Red--No true + Coniferous Wood in the Orkney Flagstones--Departure for Hoy--The + intelligent Boatman--Story of the Orkney Fisherman. + + +While yet lingering amid the Standing Stones, I was joined by Mr. +Garson, who had obligingly ridden a good many miles to meet me, and now +insisted that I should mount and ride in turn, while he walked by my +side, that I might be fresh, he said, for the exploratory ramble of the +evening. I could have ventured more readily on taking the command of a +vessel than of a horse, and with fewer fears of mutiny; but mount I did; +and the horse, a discreet animal, finding he was to have matters very +much his own way, got upon honor with me, and exerted himself to such +purpose that we did not fall greatly more than a hundred yards behind +Mr. Garson. We traversed in our journey a long dreary moor, so entirely +ruined, like those which I had seen on the previous day, by belonging to +everybody in general, as to be no longer of the slightest use to anybody +in particular. The soil seems to have been naturally poor; but it must +have taken a good deal of spoiling to render it the sterile, verdureless +waste it is now; for even where it had been poorest, I found that in the +island-like appropriated patches by which it is studded, it at least +bears, what it has long ceased to bear elsewhere, a continuous covering +of green sward. But if disposed to quarrel with the commons of Orkney, I +found in close neighborhood with them that with which I could have no +quarrel,--numerous small properties farmed by the proprietors, and +forming, in most instances, farms by no means very large. There are +parishes in this part of the mainland divided among from sixty to eighty +landowners. + +A nearly similar state of things seems to have obtained in Scotland +about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and for the greater part +of the previous one. I am acquainted with old churchyards in the north +of Scotland that contain the burying-grounds of from six to ten landed +proprietors, whose lands are now merged into single properties. And, in +reading the biographies of our old covenanting ministers, I have often +remarked as curious, and as bearing in the same line, that no +inconsiderable proportion of their number were able to retire, in times +of persecution, to their own little estates. It was during the +disastrous wars of the French Revolution,--wars from the effects of +which Great Britain will, I fear, never fully recover,--that the smaller +holdings were finally absorbed. About twenty years ere the war began, +the lands of England were parcelled out among no fewer than two hundred +and fifty thousand families; before the peace of 1815, they had fallen +into the hands of thirty-two thousand. In less than half a century, that +base of actual proprietorship on which the landed interest of any +country must ever find its surest standing, had contracted in England to +less than one-seventh its former extent. In Scotland the absorption of +the great bulk of the lesser properties seems to have taken place +somewhat earlier; but in it also the revolutionary war appears to have +given them the final blow; and the more extensive proprietors of the +kingdom are assuredly all the less secure in consequence of their +extinction. They were the smaller stones in the wall, that gave firmness +in the setting to the larger, and jammed them fast within those safe +limits determined by the line and plummet, which it is ever perilous to +overhang. Very extensive territorial properties, wherever they exist, +create almost necessarily--human nature being what it is--a species of +despotism more oppressive than even that of great unrepresentative +governments. It used to be remarked on the Continent, that there was +always less liberty in petty principalities, where the eye of the ruler +was ever on his subjects, than under the absolute monarchies.[23] And in +a country such as ours, the accumulation of landed property in the hands +of comparatively a few individuals has the effect often of bringing the +territorial privileges of the great landowner into a state of +antagonism with the civil and religious rights of the people, that +cannot be other than perilous to the landowner himself. In a district +divided, like Orkney, among many owners, a whole country-side could not +be shut up against its people by some ungenerous or intolerant +proprietor,--greatly at his own risk and to his own hurt,--as in the +case of Glen Tilt or the Grampians; nor, when met for purposes of public +worship, could the population of a parish be chased from off its bare +moors, at his instance, by the constable or the sheriff-officer, to +worship God agreeably to their consciences amid the mire of a +cross-road, or on the bare sea-beach uncovered by the ebb of the tide. +The smaller properties of the country, too, served admirably as +stepping-stones, by which the proprietors or their children, when +possessed of energy and intellect, could mount to a higher walk of +society. Here beside me, for instance, was my friend Mr. Garson, a +useful and much-esteemed minister of religion in his native district; +while his brother, a medical man of superior parts, was fast rising into +extensive practice in the neighboring town. They had been prepared for +their respective professions by a classical education; and yet the +stepping-stone to positions in society at once so important and so +respectable was simply one of the smaller holdings of Orkney, derived to +them as the descendants of one of the old Scandinavian Udallers, and +which fell short, I was informed, of a hundred a-year. + +Mr. Garson's dwelling, to which I was welcomed with much hospitality by +his mother and sisters, occupies the middle of an inclined hollow or +basin, so entirely surrounded by low, moory hills, that at no +point,--though the radius of the prospect averages from four to six +miles,--does it command a view of the sea. I scarce expected being +introduced in Orkney to a scene in which the traveller could so +thoroughly forget that he was on an island. Of the parish of Harray, +which borders on Mr. Garson's property, no part touches the sea-coast; +and the people of the parish are represented by their neighbors, who +pride themselves upon their skill as sailors and boatmen, as a race of +lubberly landsmen, unacquainted with nautical matters, and ignorant of +the ocean and its productions. A Harray man is represented, in one of +their stories, as entering into a compact of mutual forbearance with a +lobster,--to him a monster of unknown powers and formidable +proportions,--which he had at first attempted to capture, but which had +shown fight, and had nearly captured him in turn. "Weel, weel, let a-be +for let a-be," he is made to say; "if thou does na clutch me in thy +grips, I'se no clutch thee in mine." It is to this primitive parish that +David Vedder, the sailor-poet of Orkney, refers, in his "Orcadian +Sketches," as "celebrated over the whole archipelago for the +peculiarities of its inhabitants, their singular manners and habits, +their uncouth appearance, and homely address. Being the most landward +district in Pomona," he adds, "and consequently having little +intercourse with strangers, it has become the stronghold of many ancient +customs and superstitions, which modern innovation has pushed off from +their pedestals in almost all the other parts of the island. The +permanency of its population, too, is mightily in favor of 'old use and +wont,' as it is almost entirely divided amongst a class of men yelept +_pickie_, or petty lairds, each ploughing his own fields and reaping his +own crops, much in the manner their great-great-grandfathers did in the +days of Earl Patrick. And such is the respect which they entertain for +their hereditary beliefs, that many of them are said still to cast a +lingering look, not unmixed with reverence, on certain spots held sacred +by their Scandinavian ancestors." + +After an early dinner I set out for the barony of Birsay, in the +northern extremity of the mainland, accompanied by Mr. Garson, and +passed for several miles over a somewhat dreary country, bare, sterile, +and brown, studded by cold, broad, treeless lakes, and thinly mottled by +groups of gray, diminutive cottages, that do not look as if there was +much of either plenty or comfort inside. But after surmounting the hills +that form the northern side of the interior basin, I was sensible of a +sudden improvement on the face of the country. Where the land slopes +towards the sea, the shaggy heath gives place to a green luxuriant +herbage; and the frequent patches of corn seem to rejoice in a more +genial soil. The lower slopes of Orkney are singularly rich in wild +flowers,--richer by many degrees than the fat loamy meadows of England. +They resemble gaudy pieces of carpeting, as abundant in petals as in +leaves: their luxuriant blow of red and white, blue and yellow, seems as +if competing, in the extent of surface which it occupies, with their +general ground of green. I have remarked a somewhat similar luxuriance +of wild flowers in the more sheltered hollows of the bleak north-western +coasts of Scotland. There is little that is rare to be found among these +last, save that a few Alpine plants may be here and there recognized as +occurring at a lower level than elsewhere in Britain; but the vast +profusion of blossoms borne by species common to the greater part of the +kingdom imparts to them an apparently novel character. We may detect, I +am inclined to think, in this singular profusion, both in Orkney and the +bleaker districts of the mainland of Scotland, the operation of a law +not less influential in the animal than in the vegetable world, which, +when hardship presses upon the life of the individual shrub or +quadruped, so as to threaten its vitality, renders it fruitful in behalf +of its species. I have seen the principle strikingly exemplified in the +common tobacco plant, when reared in a northern country in the open air. +Year after year it continued to degenerate, and to exhibit a smaller +leaf and a shorter stem, until the successors of what in the first year +of trial had been vigorous plants of from three to four feet in height, +had in the sixth or eighth become mere weeds of scarce as many inches. +But while the more flourishing, and as yet undegenerate plant, had +merely borne a-top a few florets, which produced a small quantity of +exceedingly minute seeds, the stunted weed, its descendant, was so +thickly covered over in its season with its pale yellow bells, as to +present the appearance of a nosegay; and the seeds produced were not +only bulkier in the mass, but also individually of much greater size. +The tobacco had grown productive in proportion as it had degenerated and +become poor. In the common scurvy grass, too, remarkable, with some +other plants, as I have already had occasion to mention, for taking its +place among both the productions of our Alpine heights and of our +sea-shores, it will be found that in proportion as its habitat proves +ungenial, and its stems and leaves become dwarfish and thin, its little +white cruciform flowers increase, till, in localities where it barely +exists, as if on the edge of extinction, we find the entire plant +forming a dense bundle of seed-vessels, each charged to the full with +seed. And in the gay meadows of Orkney, crowded with a vegetation that +approaches its northern limit of production, we detect what seems to be +the same principle, chronically operative; and hence, it would seem, +their extraordinary gaiety. Their richly-blossoming plants are the poor +productive _Irish_ of the vegetable world;[24] for Doubleday seems to +be quite in the right in holding that the law extends to not only the +inferior animals, but to our own species also. The lean, ill-fed sow and +rabbit rear, it has been long known, a greatly more numerous progeny +than the same animals when well cared for and fat; and every horse and +cattle breeder knows, that to over-feed his animals proves a sure mode +of rendering them sterile. The sheep, if tolerably well pastured, +brings forth only a single lamb at a birth; but if half-starved and +lean, the chances are that it may bring forth two or three. And so it is +also with the greatly higher human race. Place them in circumstances of +degradation and hardship so extreme as almost to threaten their +existence as individuals, and they increase, as if in behalf of the +species, with a rapidity without precedent in circumstances of greater +comfort. The aristocratic families of a country are continually running +out; and it requires frequent creations to keep up the House of Lords; +while our poor people seem increasing in some districts in almost the +mathematical ratio. The county of Sutherland is already more populous +than it was previous to the great clearings. In Skye, though fully +two-thirds of the population emigrated early in the latter half of the +last century, a single generation had scarce passed ere the gap was +completely filled; and miserable Ireland, had the human family no other +breeding-place or nursery, would of itself be sufficient in a very few +ages to people the world. + +We returned, taking in our way the cliffs of Marwick Head, in which I +detected a few scattered plates and scales, and which, like nine-tenths +of the rocks of Orkney, belong to the great flagstone division of the +formation. I found the dry-stone fences on Mr. Garson's property still +richer in detached fossil fragments than the cliffs; but there are few +erections in the island that do not inclose in their walls portions of +the organic. We find ichthyolite remains in the flagstones laid bare +along the way-side,--in every heap of road-metal,--in the bottom of +every stream,--in almost every cottage and fence. Orkney is a land of +defunct fishes, and contains in its rocky folds more individuals of the +waning ganoid family than are now to be found in all the existing seas, +lakes, and rivers of the world. I enjoyed in a snug upper room a +delectable night's rest, after a day of prime exercise, prolonged till +it just touched on toil, and again experienced, on looking out in the +morning on the wide flat basin around, a feeling somewhat akin to +wonder, that Orkney should possess a scene at once so extensive and so +exclusively inland. + +Towards mid-day I walked on to the parish manse of Sandwick, armed with +a letter of introduction to its inmate, the Rev. Charles Clouston,--a +gentleman whose descriptions of the Orkneys, in the very complete and +tastefully written Guide-Book of the Messrs. Anderson of Inverness, and +of his own parish in the "Statistical Account of Scotland," had, both +from the high literary ability and the amount of scientific acquirement +which they exhibit, rendered me desirous to see. I was politely +received, though my visit must have been, as I afterwards ascertained, +at a rather inconvenient time. It was now late in the week, and the +coming Sabbath was that of the communion in the parish; but Mr. Clouston +obligingly devoted to me at least an hour, and I found it a very +profitable one. He showed me a collection of flags, with which he +intended constructing a grotto, and which contained numerous specimens +of Coccosteus, that he had exposed to the weather, to bring out the fine +blue efflorescence,--a phosphate of iron which forms on the surface of +the plates. They reminded me, from their peculiar style of coloring, and +the grotesqueness of their forms, of the blue figuring on pieces of +buff-colored china, and seemed to be chiefly of one species, very +abundant in Orkney, the _Coccosteus decipiens_. We next walked out to +see a quarry in the neighborhood of the manse, remarkable for containing +in immense abundance the heads of Dipteri,--many of them in a good state +of keeping, with all the multitudinous plates to which they owe their +pseudo-name, Polyphractus, in their original places, and bearing unworn +and untarnished their minute carvings and delicate enamel, but existing +in every case as mere detached heads. I found three of them lying in one +little slaty fragment of two and a half inches by four, which I brought +along with me. Mr. Clouston had never seen the curious arrangement of +palatal plates and teeth which distinguishes the Dipterus; and, drawing +his attention to it in an ill-preserved specimen which I found in the +coping of his glebe-wall, I restored, in a rude pencil sketch, the two +angular patches of teeth that radiate from the elegant dart-head in the +centre of the palate, with the rhomboidal plate behind. "We have a fish, +not uncommon on the rocky coasts of this part of the country," he +said,--"the Bergil or Striped Wrasse (_Labras Balanus_),--which bears +exactly such patches of angular teeth in its palate. They adhere +strongly together; and, when found in our old Picts' houses, which +occasionally happens, they have been regarded by some of our local +antiquaries as artificial,--an opinion which I have had to correct, +though it seems not improbable that, from their gem-like appearance, +they may have been used in a rude age as ornaments. I think I can show +you one disinterred here some years ago." It interested me to find, from +Mr. Clouston's specimens that the palatal grinders of this recent fish +of Orkney very nearly resemble those of its _Dipterus_ of the Old Red +Sandstone. The group is of nearly the same size in the modern as in the +ancient fish, and presents the same angular form; but the individual +teeth are more strongly set in the Bergil than in the Dipterus, and +radiate less regularly from the inner rectangular point of the angle to +its base outside. I could fain have procured an Orkney Bergil, in order +to determine the general pattern of its palatal dentition with what is +very peculiar in the more ancient fish,--the form of the lower jaw; and +to ascertain farther, from the contents of the stomach, the species of +shell-fish or crustaceans on which it feeds; but, though by no means +rare in Orkney, where it is occasionally used as food, I was unable, +during my short stay, to possess myself of a specimen. + +Mr. Clouston had, I found, chiefly directed his palaeontological +inquiries on the vegetable remains of the flagstones, as the department +of the science in which, in relation to Orkney, most remained to be +done; and his collection of these is the most considerable in the number +of its specimens that I have yet seen. It, however, serves but to show +how very extreme is the poverty of the flora of the Lower Old Red +Sandstone. The numerous fishes of the period seem to have inhabited a +sea little more various in its vegetation than in its molluscs. Among +the specimens of Mr. Clouston's collection I could detect but two +species of plants,--an imperfectly preserved vegetable, more nearly +resembling a club-moss than aught I have seen, and a smooth-stemmed +fucoid, existing as a mere coaly film on the stone, and distinguished +chiefly from the other by its sharp-edged, well-defined outline, and +from the circumstance that its stems continue to retain the same +diameter for a considerable distance, and this, too, after throwing off +at acute angles numerous branches, nearly equal in bulk to the parent +trunk. In a specimen about two and a half feet in length, which I owe to +the kindness of Mr. Dick of Thurso, there are stems continuous +throughout, that, though they ramify into from six to eight branches in +that space, are quite as thick atop as at bottom. They are the remains, +in all probability, of a long flexible fucoid, like those fucoids of the +intertropical seas that, streaming slantwise in the tide, rise not +unfrequently to the surface in fifteen and twenty fathoms water. I saw +among Mr. Clouston's specimens no such lignite as the fragment of true +coniferous wood which I had found at Cromarty a few years previous, and +which, it would seem, is still unique among the fossils of the Old Red +Sandstone. In the chart of the Pacific attached to the better editions +of "Cook's Voyages," there are several entries along the track of the +great navigator that indicate where, in mid-ocean, trees, or fragments +of trees, had been picked up. The entries, however, are but few, though +they belong to all the three voyages together: if I remember aright, +there are only five entries in all,--two in the Northern and three in +the Southern Pacific. The floating tree, at a great distance from land, +is of rare occurrence in even the present scene of things, though the +breadth of land be great, and trees numerous; and in the times of the +Old Red Sandstone, when probably the breadth of land was _not_ great, +and trees _not_ numerous, it seems to have been of rarer occurrence +still. But it is at least something to know that in this early age of +the world trees there were. + +I walked on to Stromness, and on the following morning, that of +Saturday, took boat for Hoy,--skirting, on my passage out, the eastern +and southern shores of the intervening island of Graemsay, and, on the +passage back again, its western and northern shores. The boatman, an +intelligent man,--one of the teachers, as I afterwards ascertained, in +the Free Church Sabbath-school,--lightened the way by his narratives of +storm and wreck, and not a few interesting snatches of natural history. +There is no member of the commoner professions with whom I better like +to meet than with a sensible fisherman, who makes a right use of his +eyes. The history of fishes is still very much what the history of +almost all animals was little more than half a century ago,--a matter of +mere external description, heavy often and dry, and of classification +founded exclusively on anatomical details. We have still a very great +deal to learn regarding the character, habits and instincts of these +denizens of the deep,--much, in short, respecting that faculty which is +in them through which their natures are harmonized to the inexorable +laws, and they continue to live wisely and securely, in consequence, +within their own element, when man, with all his reasoning ability, is +playing strange vagaries in his;--a species of knowledge this, by the +way, which constitutes by far the most valuable part,--the _mental_ +department of natural history; and the notes of the intelligent +fisherman, gleaned from actual observation, have frequently enabled me +to fill portions of the wide hiatus in the history of fishes which it +ought of right to occupy. In passing, as we toiled along the Graemsay +coast, the ruins of a solitary cottage, the boatman furnished us with a +few details of the history and character of its last inmate, an Orkney +fisherman, that would have furnished admirable materials for one of the +darker sketches of Crabbe. He was, he said, a resolute, unsocial man, +not devoid of a dash of reckless humor, and remarkable for an +extraordinary degree of bodily strength, which he continued to retain +unbroken to an age considerably advanced, and which, as he rarely +admitted of a companion in his voyages, enabled him to work his little +skiff alone, in weather when even better equipped vessels had enough ado +to keep the sea. He had been married in early life to a +religiously-disposed woman, a member of some dissenting body; but, +living with him in the little island of Graemsay, separated by the sea +from any place of worship, he rarely permitted her to see the inside of +a church. At one time, on the occasion of a communion Sabbath in the +neighboring parish of Stromness, he seemed to yield to her entreaties, +and got ready his yawl, apparently with the design of bringing her +across the Sound to the town. They had, however, no sooner quitted the +shore than he sailed off to a green little Ogygia of a holm in the +neighborhood, on which, reversing the old mythologic story of Calypso +and Ulysses, he incarcerated the poor woman for the rest of the day till +evening. I could see, from the broad grin with which the boatman greeted +this part of the recital, that there was, unluckily, almost fun enough +in the trick to neutralize the sense of its barbarity. The unsocial +fisherman lived on, dreaded and disliked, and yet, when his skiff was +seen boldly keeping the sea in the face of a freshening gale, when every +other was making for port, or stretching out from the land as some +stormy evening was falling, not a little admired also. At length, on a +night of fearful tempest, the skiff was marked approaching the coast, +full on an iron-bound promontory, where there could be no safe landing. +The helm, from the steadiness of her course, seemed fast lashed, and, +dimly discernible in the uncertain light, the solitary boatman could be +seen sitting erect at the bows, as if looking out for the shore. But as +his little bark came shooting inwards on the long roll of a wave, it was +found that there was no speculation in his stony glance: the +misanthropic fisherman was a cold and rigid corpse. He had died at sea, +as English juries emphatically express themselves in such cases, under +"the visitation of God." + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + Hoy--Unique Scenery--The Dwarfie Stone of Hoy--Sir Walter Scott's + Account of it--Its Associations--Inscription of Names--George + Buchanan's Consolation--The mythic Carbuncle of the Hill of Hoy--No + Fossils at Hoy--Striking Profile of Sir Walter Scott on the Hill of + Hoy--Sir Walter, and Shetland and Orkney--Originals of two + Characters in "The Pirate"--Bessie Millie--Garden of Gow, the + "Pirate"--Childhood's Scene of Byron's "Torquil"--The Author's + Introduction to his Sister--A German Visitor--German and Scotch + Sabbath-keeping habits contrasted--Mr. Watt's Specimens of Fossil + Remains--The only new Organism found in Orkney--Back to + Kirkwall--to Wick--Vedder's Ode to Orkney. + + +We landed at Hoy, on a rocky stretch of shore, composed of the gray +flagstones of the district. They spread out here in front of the tall +hills composed of the overlying sandstone, in a green undulating +platform, resembling a somewhat uneven esplanade spread out in front of +a steep rampart. With the upper deposit a new style of scenery +commences, unique in these islands: the hills, bold and abrupt, rise +from fourteen to sixteen hundred feet over the sea-level; and the +valleys by which they are traversed,--no mere shallow inflections of the +general surface, like most of the other valleys of Orkney,--are of +profound depth, precipitous, imposing, and solitary. The sudden change +from the soft, low, and comparatively tame, to the bold, stern, and +high, serves admirably to show how much the character of a landscape may +depend on the formation which composes it. A walk of somewhat less than +two miles brought me into the depths of a brown, shaggy valley, so +profoundly solitary, that it does not contain a single human habitation, +nor, with one interesting exception, a single trace of the hand of man. +As the traveller approaches by a path somewhat elevated, in order to +avoid the peaty bogs of the bottom, along the slopes of the northern +side of the dell, he sees, amid the heath below, what at first seems to +be a rhomboidal piece of pavement of pale Old Red Sandstone, bearing +atop a few stunted tufts of vegetation. There are no neighboring objects +of a known character by which to estimate its size; the precipitous +hill-front behind is more than a thousand feet in height: the greatly +taller Ward Hill of Hoy, which frowns over it on the opposite side, is +at least five hundred feet higher; and, dwarfed by these giants, it +seems a mere pavior's flag, mayhap some five or six feet square, by from +eighteen inches to two feet in depth. It is only on approaching it +within a few yards that we find it to be an enormous stone, nearly +thirty feet in length by almost fifteen feet in breadth, and in some +places, though it thins, wedge-like, towards one of the edges, more than +six feet in thickness,--forming altogether such a mass as the quarrier +would detach from the solid rock to form the architrave of some vast +gateway, or the pediment of some colossal statue. A cave-like +excavation, nearly three feet square, and rather more than seven feet in +depth, opens on its gray and lichened side. The excavation is widened +within, along the opposite walls, into two uncomfortably short beds, +very much resembling those of the cabin of a small coasting vessel. One +of the two is furnished with a protecting ledge and a pillow of stone, +hewn out of the solid mass, while the other, which is some five or six +inches shorter than its neighbor, and presents altogether more the +appearance of a place of penance than of repose, lacks both cushion and +ledge. An aperture, which seems to have been originally of a circular +form, and about two and a half feet in diameter, but which some unlucky +herd-boy, apparently in the want of better employment, has considerably +mutilated and widened, opens at the inner excavation of the extremity +to the roof, as the hatch of a vessel opens from the hold to the deck; +for it is by far too wide in proportion to the size of the apartment to +be regarded as a chimney. A gray, rudely-hewn block of sandstone, which, +though greatly too ponderous to be moved by any man of the ordinary +strength, seems to have served the purpose of a door, lies prostrate +beside the opening in front. And such is the famous Dwarfie Stone of +Hoy, as firmly fixed in our literature by the genius of Sir Walter +Scott, as in this wild valley by its ponderous weight and breadth of +base, and regarding which--for it shares in the general obscurity of the +other ancient remains of Orkney--the antiquary can do little more than +repeat, somewhat incredulously, what tradition tells him, viz., that it +was the work, many ages ago, of an ugly, malignant goblin, half-earth +half-air,--the Elfin Trolld,--a personage, it is said, that even within +the last century, used occasionally to be seen flitting about in its +neighborhood. + +I was fortunate in a fine breezy day, clear and sunshiny, save where the +shadows of a few dense piled-up clouds swept dark athwart the landscape. +In the secluded recesses of the valley all was hot, heavy and still; +though now and then a fitful snatch of a breeze, the mere fragment of +some broken gust that seemed to have lost its way, tossed for a moment +the white cannach of the bogs, or raised spirally into the air, for a +few yards, the light beards of some seeding thistle, and straightway let +them down again. Suddenly, however, about noon, a shower broke thick and +heavy against the dark sides and gray scalp of the Ward Hill, and came +sweeping down the valley. I did what Norna of the Fitful Head had, +according to the novelist, done before me in similar circumstances, +crept for shelter into the larger bed of the cell, which, though rather +scant, taken fairly lengthwise, for a man of five feet eleven, I found, +by stretching myself diagonally from corner to corner, no very +uncomfortable lounging-place in a thunder-shower. Some provident +herd-boy had spread it over, apparently months before, with a littering +of heath and fern, which now formed a dry, springy conch; and as I lay +wrapped up in my plaid, listening to the rain-drops as they pattered +thick and heavy atop, or slanted through the broken hatchway to the +vacant bed on the opposite side of the excavation, I called up the wild +narrative of Norna, and felt all its poetry. The opening passage of the +story is, however, not poetry, but good prose, in which the curious +visitor might give expression to his own conjectures, if ingenious +enough either to form or to express them so well. "With my eyes fixed on +the smaller bed," the sorceress is made to say, "I wearied myself with +conjectures regarding the origin and purpose of my singular place of +refuge. Had it been really the work of that powerful Trolld to whom the +poetry of the Scalds referred it? or was it the tomb of some +Scandinavian chief, interred with his arms and his wealth, perhaps also +with his immolated wife, that what he loved best in life might not in +death be divided from him? or was it the abode of penance chosen by some +devoted anchorite of later days? or the idle work of some wandering +mechanic, whom chance, and whim, and leisure, had thrust upon such an +undertaking?" What follows this sober passage is the work of the poet. +"Sleep," continues Norna, "had gradually crept upon me among my +lucubrations, when I was startled from my slumbers by a second clap of +thunder, and when I awoke, I saw through the dim light which the upper +aperture admitted, the unshapely and indistinct form of Trolld the +dwarf, seated opposite to me on the lesser couch, which his square and +misshapen bulk seemed absolutely to fill up. I was startled, but not +affrighted; for the blood of the ancient race of Lochlin was warm in my +veins. He spoke, and his words were of Norse,--so old, that few save my +father, or I myself could have comprehended their import,--such language +as was spoken in these islands ere Olave planted his cross on the ruins +of heathenism. His meaning was dark also, and obscure, like that which +the pagan priests were wont to deliver, in the name of their idols, to +the tribes that assembled at the _Helgafels_.... I answered him in +nearly the same strain, for the spirit of the ancient Scalds of our race +was upon me; and far from fearing the phantom with whom I sat cooped +within so narrow a space, I felt the impulse of that high courage which +thrust the ancient champions and Druidesses upon contests with the +invisible world, when they thought that the earth no longer contained +enemies worthy to be subdued by them.... The Demon scowled at me as if +at once incensed and overawed; and then, coiling himself up in a thick +and sulphurous vapor, he disappeared from his place. I did not till that +moment feel the influence of fright, but then it seized me. I rushed +into the open air, where the tempest had passed away, and all was pure +and serene." Shall I dare confess, that I could fain have passed some +stormy night all alone in this solitary cell, were it but to enjoy the +luxury of listening, amid the darkness, to the clashing rain and the +roar of the wind high among the cliffs, or to detect the brushing sound +of hasty footsteps in the wild rustle of the heath, or the moan of +unhappy spirits in the low roar of the distant sea. Or, mayhap,--again +to borrow from the poet,--as midnight was passing into morning, + + "To ponder o'er some mystic lay, + Till the wild tale had all its sway; + And in the bittern's distant shriek + I heard unearthly voices speak, + Or thought the wizard priest was come + To claim again his ancient home! + And bade my busy fancy range + To frame him fitting shape and strange; + Till from the dream my brow I cleared, + And smiled to think that I had feared." + +The Dwarfie Stone has been a good deal undervalued by some writers, such +as the historian of Orkney, Mr. Barry; and, considered simply as a work +of art or labor, it certainly does not stand high. When tracing, as I +lay a-bed, the marks of the tool, which, in the harder portions of the +stone, are still distinctly visible, I just thought how that, armed with +pick and chisel, and working as I was once accustomed to work, I could +complete such another excavation to order in some three weeks or a +month. But then, I could not make my excavation a thousand years old, +nor envelop its origin in the sun-gilt vapors of a poetic obscurity, nor +connect it with the supernatural, through the influences of wild ancient +traditions, nor yet encircle it with a classic halo, borrowed from the +undying inventions of an exquisite literary genius. A half-worn pewter +spoon, stamped on the back with the word _London_, which was found in a +miserable hut on the banks of the Awatska by some British sailors, at +once excited in their minds a thousand tender remembrances of their +country. And it would, I suspect, be rather a poor criticism, and +scarcely suited to grapple with the true phenomena of the case, that, +wholly overlooking the magical influences of the associative faculty, +would concentrate itself simply on either the-workmanship or the +materials of the spoon. Nor is the Dwarfie Stone to be correctly +estimated, independently of the suggestive principle, on the rules of +the mere quarrier who sells stones by the cubic foot, or of the mere +contractor for hewn work who dresses them by the square one. + +The pillow I found lettered over with the names of visitors; but the +stone,--an exceedingly compact red sandstone,--had resisted the +imperfect tools at the command of the traveller,--usually a nail or +knife; and so there were but two of the names decipherable,--that of an +"H. Ross, 1735," and that of a "P. FOLSTER, 1830." The rain still +pattered heavily overhead; and with my geological chisel and hammer I +did, to beguile the time, what I very rarely do,--added my name to the +others, in characters which, if both they and the Dwarfie Stone get but +fair play, will be distinctly legible two centuries hence. In what state +will the world then exist, or what sort of ideas will fill the head of +the man who, when the rock has well-nigh yielded up its charge, will +decipher the name for the last time, and inquire, mayhap, regarding the +individual whom it now designates, as I did this morning, when I asked, +"Who was this H. Ross, and who this P. Folster?" I remember when it +would have saddened me to think that there would in all probability be +as little response in the one case as in the other; but as men rise in +years they become more indifferent than in early youth to "that life +which wits inherit after death," and are content to labor on and be +obscure. They learn, too, if I may judge from experience, to pursue +science more exclusively for its own sake, with less, mayhap, of +enthusiasm to carry them on, but with what is at least as strong to take +its place as a moving force, that wind and bottom of formed habit +through which what were at first acts of the will pass into easy +half-instinctive promptings of the disposition. In order to acquaint +myself with the fossiliferous deposits of Scotland, I have travelled, +hammer in hand, during the last nine years, over fully ten thousand +miles; nor has the work been in the least one of dry labor,--not more so +than that of the angler, or grouse-shooter, or deer-stalker: it has +occupied the mere leisure interstices of a somewhat busy life, and has +served to relieve its toils. I have succeeded, however, in +accomplishing but little: besides, what is discovery to-day will be but +rudimentary fact to the tyro-geologists of the future. But if much has +not been done, I have at least the consolation of George Buchanan, when, +according to Melvill, "fand sitting in his chair, teiching his young man +that servit him in his chalmer to spell a, b, ab; e, b, eb. 'Better +this,' quoth he, 'nor stelling sheipe.'" + +The sun broke out in great beauty after the shower, glistening on a +thousand minute runnels that came streaming down the precipices, and +revealing, through the thin vapory haze, the horizontal lines of strata +that bar the hill-sides, like courses of ashlar in a building. I failed, +however, to detect, amid the general many-pointed glitter by which the +blue gauze-like mist was bespangled, the light of the great carbuncle +for which the Ward Hill has long been famous,--that wondrous gem, +according to Sir Walter, "that, though it gleams ruddy as a furnace to +them that view it from beneath, ever becomes invisible to him whose +daring foot scales the precipices whence it darts its splendor." The +Hill of Hoy is, however, not the only one in the kingdom that, according +to tradition, bears a jewel in its forehead. The "great diamond" of the +Northern Sutor was at one time scarce less famous than the carbuncle of +the Ward Hill. "I have been oftener than once interrogated on the western +coast of Scotland regarding the diamond rock of Cromarty; and have been +told, by an old campaigner who fought under Abercrombie, that he has +listened to the familiar story of its diamond amid the sand wastes of +Egypt." But the diamond has long since disappeared; and we now see only +the rock. Unlike the carbuncle of Hoy, it was never seen by day; though +often, says the legend, the benighted boatmen has gazed, from amid the +darkness, as he came rowing along the shore, on its clear beacon-like +flame, which, streaming from the precipice, threw a fiery strip across +the water; and often have the mariners of other countries inquired +whether the light which they saw so high among the cliffs, right over +their mast, did not proceed from the shrine of some saint or the cell of +some hermit. At length an ingenious ship-captain determined on marking +its place, brought with him from England a few balls of chalk, and took +aim at it in the night-time with one of his great guns. Ere he had +fired, however, it vanished, as if suddenly withdrawn by some guardian +hand; and its place in the rock front has ever since remained as +undistinguishable, whether by night or by day, as the scaurs and clefts +around it. The marvels of the present time abide examination more +patiently. It seems difficult enough to conceive, for instance, that the +upper deposit of the Lower Old Red in this locality, out of which the +mountains of Hoy have been scooped, once overlaid the flag stones of all +Orkney, and stretched on and away to Dunnet Head, Tarbet Ness, and the +Black Isle; and yet such is the story, variously authenticated, to which +their nearly horizontal strata, and their abrupt precipices lend their +testimony. In no case has this superior deposit of the formation of the +Coccosteus been known to furnish a single fossil; nor did it yield me on +this occasion, among the Hills of Hoy, what it had denied me everywhere +else on every former one. Sly search, however, was by no means either +very prolonged or very careful. + +I found I had still several hours of day-light before me; and these I +spent, after my return on a rough tumbling sea to Stromness, in a second +survey of the coast, westwards from the granitic axis of the island, to +the bishop's palace, and the ichthyolitic quarry beyond. From this point +of view the high terminal Hill of Hoy, towards the west, presents what +is really a striking profile of Sir Walter Scott, sculptured in the rock +front by the storms of ages, on so immense a scale, that the Colossus of +Rhodes, Pharos and all, would scarce have furnished materials enough to +supply it with a nose. There are such asperities in the outline as one +might expect in that of a rudely modelled bust, the work of a master, +from which, in his fiery haste, he had not detached the superfluous +clay; but these interfere in no degree with the fidelity, I had almost +said spirit, of the likeness. It seems well, as it must have waited for +thousands of years ere it became the portrait it now is, that the human +profile, which it preceded so long, and without which it would have +lacked the element of individual truth, should have been that of Sir +Walter. Amid scenes so heightened in interest by his genius as those of +Orkney, he is entitled to a monument. To the critical student of the +philosophy and history of poetic invention it is not uninstructive to +observe how completely the novelist has appropriated and brought within +the compass of one fiction, in defiance of all those lower probabilities +which the lawyer who pleaded before a jury court would be compelled to +respect, almost every interesting scene and object in both the Shetland +and Orkney islands. There was but little intercourse in those days +between the two northern archipelagos. It is not yet thirty years since +they communicated with each other, chiefly through the port of Leith, +where their regular traders used to meet monthly; but it was necessary, +for purposes of effect, that the dreary sublimities of Shetland should +be wrought up into the same piece of rich tissue with the imposing +antiquities of Orkney,--Sumburgh Head and Roost with the ancient +Cathedral of St. Magnus and the earl's palace, and Fitful Head and the +sand-enveloped kirk of St. Ringan with the Standing Stones of Stennis +and the Dwarfie Stone of Hoy; and so the little jury-court probabilities +have been sacrificed without scruple, and that higher truth of +character, and that exquisite portraiture of external nature, which give +such reality to fiction, and make it sink into the mind more deeply than +historic fact, have been substituted instead. But such,--considerably to +the annoyance of the lesser critics,--has been ever the practice of the +greater poets. The lesser critics are all critics of the jury-court +cast; while all the great masters of fiction, with Shakspeare at their +head, have been asserters of that higher truth which is not letter, but +spirit, and contemners of the mere judicial probabilities. And so they +have been continually fretting the little men with their extravagances, +and they ever will. What were said to be the originals of two of Sir +Walter's characters in the "Pirate" were living in the neighborhood of +Stromness only a few years ago. An old woman who resided immediately +over the town, in a little cottage, of which there now remains only the +roofless walls, and of whom the sailors, weather-bound in the port, used +occasionally to purchase a wind, furnished him with the first conception +of his Norna of the Fitful Head; and an eccentric shopkeeper of the +place, who to his dying day used to designate the "Pirate," with much +bitterness, as a "lying book," and its author as a "wicked lying man," +is said to have suggested the character of Bryce Snailsfoot the peddler. +To the sorceress Sir Walter himself refers in one of his notes. "At the +village of Stromness, on the Orkney main island, called Pomona, lived," +he says, "in 1814, an aged dame called Bessie Millie, who helped out her +subsistence by selling favorable winds to mariners. Her dwelling and +appearance were not unbecoming her pretensions: her house, which was on +the brow of the steep hill on which Stromness is founded, was only +accessible by a series of dirty and precipitous lanes, and, for +exposure, might have been the abode of Aeolus himself, in whose +commodities the inhabitant dealt. She herself was, as she told us, +nearly one hundred years old, withered and dried up like a mummy. A +clay-colored kerchief, folded round her head, corresponded in color to +her corpse-like complexion. Two light-blue eyes that gleamed with a +lustre like that of insanity, an utterance of astonishing rapidity, a +nose and chin that almost met together, and a ghastly expression of +cunning, gave her the effect of Hecate. She remembered Gow the pirate, +who had been a native of these islands, in which he closed his career. +Such was Bessie Millie, to whom the mariners paid a sort of tribute, +with a feeling betwixt jest and earnest." + +On the opposite side of Stromness, where the arm of the sea, which forms +the harbor, is about a quarter of a mile in width, there is, immediately +over the shore, a small square patch of ground, apparently a +_planticruive_, or garden, surrounded by a tall dry-stone fence. It is +all that survives--for the old dwelling-house to which it was attached +was pulled down several years ago--of the patrimony of Gow the "Pirate;" +and is not a little interesting, as having formed the central nucleus +round which,--like those bits of thread or wire on which the richly +saturated fluids of the chemist solidify and crystallize,--the entire +fiction of the novelist aggregated and condensed under the influence of +forces operative only in minds of genius. A white, tall, old-fashioned +house, conspicuous on the hill-side, looks out across the bay towards +the square inclosure, which it directly fronts. And it is surely a +curious coincidence, that while in one of these two erections, only a +few hundred yards apart, one of the heroes of Scott saw the light, the +other should have proved the scene of the childhood of one of the heroes +of Byron, + + "Torquil, the nursling of the northern seas." + +The reader will remember, that in Byron's poem of "The Island," one of +the younger leaders of the mutineers is described as a native of these +northern isles. He is drawn by the poet, amid the wild luxuriance of an +island of the Pacific, as + + "The blue-eyed northern child, + Of isles more known to man, but scarce less wild,-- + The fair-haired offspring of the Orcades, + Where roars the Pentland with his whirling seas,-- + Rocked in his cradle by the roaring wind, + The tempest-born in body and in mind,-- + His young eyes, opening on the ocean foam,-- + Had from that moment deemed the deep his home." + +Judging from what I learned of his real history, which is well known in +Stromness, I found reason to conclude that he had been a hapless young +man, of a kindly, genial nature; and greatly "more sinned against than +sinning," in the unfortunate affair of the mutiny with which his name is +now associated, and for his presumed share in which, untried and +unconvicted, he was cruelly left to perish in chains amid the horrors of +a shipwreck. I had the honor of being introduced on the following day to +his sister, a lady far advanced in life, but over whose erect form and +handsome features the years seemed to have passed lightly, and whom I +met at the Free Church of Stromness, to which, at the Disruption, she +had followed her respected minister. It seemed a fact as curiously +compounded as some of those pictures of the last age in which the thin +unsubstantialities of allegory mingled with the tangibilities of the +real and the material, that the sister of one of Byron's heroes should +be an attached member of the Free Church. + +On my return to the inn, I found in the public room a young German of +some one or two and twenty, who, in making the tour of Scotland, had +extended his journey into Orkney. My specimens, which had begun to +accumulate in the room, on chimney-piece and window-sill, had attracted +his notice, and led us into conversation. He spoke English well, but not +fluently,--in the style of one who had been more accustomed to read than +to converse in it; and he seemed at least as familiar with two of our +great British authors,--Shakspeare and Sir Walter Scott,--as most of the +better-informed British themselves. It was chiefly the descriptions of +Sir Walter in the "Pirate" that had led him into Orkney. He had already +visited the Cathedral of St. Magnus and the Stones of Stennis; and on +the morrow he intended visiting the Dwarfie Stone; though I ventured to +suggest that, as a broad sound lay between Stromness and Hoy, and as the +morrow was the Sabbath, he might find some difficulty in doing that. His +circle of acquirement was, I found, rather literary than scientific. It +seemed, however, to be that of a really accomplished young man, greatly +better founded in his scholarship than most of our young Scotchmen on +quitting the national universities; and I felt, as we conversed +together, chiefly on English literature and general politics, how much +poorer a figure I would have cut in his country than he cut in mine. I +found, on coming down from my room next morning to a rather late +breakfast, that he had been out among the Stromness fishermen, and had +returned somewhat chafed. Not a single boatman could he find in a +populous seaport town that would undertake to carry him to the Dwarfie +Stone on the Sabbath,--a fact, to their credit, which it is but simple +justice to state. I saw him afterwards in the Free Church, listening +attentively to a thoroughly earnest and excellent discourse, by the +Disruption minister of the parish, Mr. Learmonth; and in the course of +the evening he dropped in for a short time to the Free Church +Sabbath-school, where he took his seat beside one of the teachers, as if +curious to ascertain more in detail the character of the instruction +which had operated so influentially on the boatmen, and which he had +seen telling from the pulpit with such evident effect. What would not +his country now give,--now, while drifting loose from all its old +moorings, full on the perils of a lee shore,--for the anchor of a faith +equally steadfast! He was a Lutheran, he told me; but, as is too common +in Germany, his actual beliefs appeared to be very considerably at +variance with his hereditary creed. The creed was a tolerably sound one, +but the living belief regarding it seemed to do little more than take +cognizance of what he deemed the fact of its death. + +I had carried with me a letter of introduction to Mr. William Watt, to +whom I have already had occasion to refer as an intelligent geologist; +but the letter I had no opportunity of delivering. Mr. Watt had learned, +however, of my being in the neighborhood, and kindly walked into +Stromness, some six or eight miles, on the morning of Monday, to meet +with me, bringing me a few of his rarer specimens. One of the number,--a +minute ichthyolite, about three inches in length,--I was at first +disposed to set down as new, but I have since come to regard it as +simply an imperfectly-preserved specimen of a Cromarty and Morayshire +species,--the _Glyptolepis microlepidotus_; though its state of keeping +is such as to render either conclusion an uncertainty. Another of the +specimens was that of a fish, still comparatively rare, first figured in +the first edition of my little volume on the "Old Red Sandstone," from +the earliest found specimen, at a time while it was yet unfurnished with +a name, but which has since had a place assigned to it in the genus +Diplacanthus, as the species longispinus. The scales, when examined by +the glass, remind one, from their pectinated character, of shells +covering the walls of a grotto,--a peculiarity to which, when showing my +specimen to Agassiz, while it had yet no duplicate, I directed his +attention, and which led him to extemporize for it, on the spot, the +generic name Ostralepis, or shell-scale. On studying it more leisurely, +however, in the process of assigning to it a place in his great work, +where the reader may now find it figured (Table XIV., fig. 8), the +naturalist found reason to rank it among the Diplacanthi. Mr. Watt's +specimen exhibited the outline of the head more completely than mine; +but the Orkney ichthyolites rarely present the microscopic minutiae; and +the shell-like aspect of the scales was shown in but one little patch, +where they had left their impressions on the stone. His other specimens +consisted of single plates of a variety of Coccosteus, undistinguishable +in their form and proportions from those of the _Coccosteus decipiens_, +but which exceeded by about one-third the average size of the +corresponding parts in that species; and of a rib-like bone, that +belonged apparently to what few of the ichthyolites of the Lower Old Red +seem to have possessed,--an osseous internal skeleton. This last +organism was the only one I saw in Orkney with which I had not been +previously acquainted, or which I could regard as new, though possibly +enough it may have formed part, not of an undiscovered genus, but of the +known genus Asterolepis, of whose inner framework, judging from the +Russian specimens at least, portions must have been bony. After parting +from Mr. Watt, I travelled on to Kirkwall, which, after a leisurely +journey, I reached late in the evening, and on the following morning +took the steamer for Wick. I brought away with me, if not many rare +specimens or many new geological facts, at least a few pleasing +recollections of an interesting country and a hospitable people. In the +previous chapter I indulged in a brief quotation from Mr. David Vedder, +the sailor-poet of Orkney, and I shall make no apology for availing +myself in the present, of the vigorous, well-turned stanzas in which he +portrays some of those peculiar features by which the land of his +nativity may be best recognized and most characteristically remembered. + + TO ORKNEY. + + Land of the whirlpool,--torrent,--foam, + Where oceans meet in madd'ning shock; + The beetling cliff,--the shelving holm,-- + The dark insidious rock. + Land of the bleak, the treeless moor,-- + The sterile mountain, sered and riven,-- + The shapeless cairn, the ruined tower, + Scathed by the bolts of heaven,-- + The yawning gulf,--the treacherous sand,-- + love thee still, MY NATIVE LAND. + + Land of the dark, the Runic rhyme,-- + The mystic ring,--the cavern hoar,-- + The Scandinavian seer, sublime + In legendary lore. + Land of a thousand sea-kings' graves,-- + Those tameless spirits of the past, + Fierce as their subject arctic waves, + Or hyperborean blast,-- + Though polar billows round thee foam, + I love thee!--thou wert once my home. + + With glowing heart and island lyre, + Ah! would some native bard arise + To sing, with all a poet's fire, + Thy stern sublimities,-- + The roaring flood,--the rushing stream,-- + The promontory wild and bare,-- + The pyramid, where sea-birds scream, + Aloft in middle air,-- + The Druid temple on the heath, + Old even beyond tradition's birth. + + Though I have roamed through verdant glades, + In cloudless climes, 'neath azure skies, + Or plucked from beauteous orient meads, + Flowers of celestial dies,-- + Though I have laved in limpid streams, + That murmur over golden sands, + Or basked amid the fulgid beams + That flame o'er fairer lands, + Or stretched me in the sparry grot,-- + My country! THOU wert ne'er forgot. + + +THE END. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] March 31, 1845. + +[2] Professor Nicol of Aberdeen believes the Red Sandstones of the West +Highlands are of Devonian age, and the quartzite and limestone of Lower +Carboniferous.--_See Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, +February 1857._--W.S. + +[3] Sir R. Murchison considers these rocks Silurian. See "Quarterly +Journal" of the Geological Society, Anniversary Address. + +[4] Probably one of the Isastrea of Edwards. + +[5] See a paper by the Rev. P.B. Brodie, on Lias Corals, "Edinburgh New +Philosophic Journal," April, 1857. + +[6] The verses here referred to are introduced into "My Schools and +Schoolmasters," chapter tenth. + +[7] For a description of this pond see "My Schools and Schoolmasters," +chapter tenth. + +[8] These remarks refer to the poem "On Seeing a Sun-Dial in a +Churchyard," which was introduced here when these chapters were first +published in the "Witness," but, having been afterwards inserted in the +tenth chapter of "My Schools and Schoolmasters," is not here reproduced. + +[9] Mr. Peach has discovered fossils in the Durness limestone, which +rests above the quartzite rock of the west of Scotland, that covers the +Red Sandstone long believed to be OLD RED. The fossils are very +obscure.--W.S.S. + +[10] This second title hears reference to the extent of the author's +geologic excursions in Scotland, during the nine years from 1840 to 1848 +inclusive. + +[11] Since the above was written, I have seen an interesting paper in +"Hogg's Weekly Instructor," in which the Rev. Mr. Longmuir of Aberdeen +describes a visit to the Lias clay at Blackpots. Mr. Longmuir seems to +have given more time to his researches than I found it agreeable, in a +very indifferent day to devote to mine; and his list of fossils is +considerably longer. Their evidence, however, runs in exactly the same +tract with that of the shorter list. He had been told at Banff that the +clay contained "petrified tangles;" and the first organism shown him by +the workmen, on his arrival at the deposit, were some of the "tangles" +in question. "These" he goes on to say, "we found, as may have already +been anticipated, to be pieces of Belemnites, well known on the other +side of the Frith as 'thunderbolts,' and esteemed of sovereign efficacy +in the cure of bewitched cattle." Though still wide of the mark, there +is here an evident descent from the supernatural to the physical, from +the superstitious to the true. "Satisfied that we had a mass of Lias +clay before us, we set vigorously to work, in order either to find +additional characteristic fossils, or obtain data on which to form a +conjecture as to the history of this out-of-the-way deposit; and our +labor was not without its reward. We shall now present a brief account +of the specimens we picked up. Observing a number of stones of different +sizes, that had been thrown out, as they were struck, by the workman's +shovel, we immediately commenced, and, like an inquisitor of old, +knocked our victims on the head, that they might reveal their secrets; +or, like a Roman haruspex, examined their interior,--not, however, to +obtain a knowledge of the future, but only to take a peep into the past. +1. Here, then, we take up, not a regular Lias lime nodule, but what +appears to have formed part of one; and the first blow has laid open +part of a whorl of an Ammonite, which, when complete, must have measured +three or four inches in diameter, and it is perfectly assimilated to the +calcareous matrix. 2. Here is a mass of indurated clay; and a gentle +blow has exposed part of two Ammonites, smaller than the former, but +their shells are white and powdery like chalk. 3. Another fragment is +laid open; and there, quite unmistakably, lie the umbo and greater +portion of the _Plagiostoma concentricum_. 4. Another fragment of a +granular gritty structure presents a considerable portion of the +interior of one of the shells of a Pecten, but whether the attached +fragment is part of one of its ears, or of the other valve turned +backward, is not so easily determined. 5. Here is a piece of Belemnite +in limestone, and the fracture in the fossil presents the usual +glistening planes of cleavage. 6. Next we take up a piece of distinctly +laminated Lias, with Ammonites as thick as they can lie on the pages of +this black book of natural history. 7. Once more we strike, and we have +the cast and part of the shell of another bivalve; but the valves have +been jerked off each other, and have suffered a severe compound +fracture; nevertheless we can have little hesitation in pronouncing it a +species of _unio_. 8. Here is another piece of limestone, with its small +fragment of another shell, of very delicate texture, with finely marked +traverse striae. We are unwilling to decide on such slight evidence, but +feel inclined to refer it to some species of Plagiostoma. 9. Here is a +piece of pyrites, not quite so large as the first, and so vegetable-like +in its markings, that it might be mistaken for part of a branch of a +tree. This is also characteristic of the Lias; for when the shales are +deeply impregnated with bitumen and pyrites, they undergo a slow +combustion when heaped up with faggots and set on fire; and in the +cliffs of the Yorkshire coast, after rainy weather, they sometimes +spontaneously ignite, and continue to burn for several months. 10. As we +passed through the works, on our way to the clay, we observed a sort of +reservoir, into which the clay, after being freed from its impurities, +had been run in a liquid state; the water had evaporated, and the drying +clay had cracked in every direction. Here we find its counterpart in +this large mass of stone; only the clay here, mixed with a portion of +lime is petrified, and the fissures filled up with carbonate of lime; +thus forming the septaria, or cement stone. We have dressed a specimen +of it for our guide, who has a friend that will polish it, when the dark +Lias will be strikingly contrasted with the white lime, and form rather +a pretty piece of natural mosaic. 11. Coming to a simple piece of +machinery for removing fragments of shale and stone from the clay, we +examined some of the bits so rejected, and found what we had no doubt +were fish-scales. 12. We have yet to notice certain long slender bodies, +outwardly brown, but inwardly nearly black, resembling whip-cord in +size. Are we to regard these as specimens of a fucus, perhaps the +_filum_, or allied to it, which is known in some places by the +appropriate name of sea-laces? 13. Passing on to the office, we were +shown a chop of wood that had been found in the clay, and was destined +for the Banff Museum. It is about eighteen inches in length, and half as +much in breadth; and although evidently water-worn, yet we could count +between twenty-five and thirty concentric rings on one of its ends, +which not only enabled us to form some conjecture of its age previous to +its overthrow, but also justified us in referring it to the coniferae of +the _vorwelt_, or ancient world." + +Mr. Longmuir makes the following shrewd remarks, in answering the +question, "Whether have we here a mass of Lias clay, as originally +deposited, or has it resulted from the breaking up of Lias-shale?" "The +former alternative," says Mr. Longmuir, "we have heard, has been +maintained; but we are inclined to adopt the latter, and that for the +following reasons: 1. This clay, judging from other localities, is not +_in situ_, but has every appearance of having been precipitated into a +basin in the gneiss on which it rests, having apparently under it, +although it is impossible to say to what extent, a bed of comminuted +shells. 2. The fossils are all fragmentary and water-worn. This is +especially the case with regard to the Belemnites, the pieces averaging +from one to two inches in length, no workman having ever found a +complete specimen, such as occurs in the Lias-shale at Cromarty, in +which they may be found nine inches in length. 3. But perhaps the most +satisfactory proof, and one that in itself may be deemed sufficient, is +the frequent occurrence of pieces of Lias-shale, with their embedded +Ammonites; which clearly show that the Lias had been broken up, tossed +about in some violent agitation of the sea, and churned into clay, just +as some denudating process of a similar nature swept away the chalk of +Aberdeenshire, leaving on many of its hills and plains the water-worn +flints, with the characteristic fossils of the Cretaceous formation." + +[12] A description of Miss Bond and of her "Letters" here referred to, +is given in the fifth chapter of "My Schools and Schoolmasters." + +[13] The story here referred to is narrated in "Scenes and Legends of +the North of Scotland," chap. XXV. + +[14] _Scaur_, Scotice, a precipice of clay. There is no single English +word that conveys exactly the same idea. + +[15] Mr. Dick has since disinterred from out the boulder-clays of the +Burn of Freswick, _Patella vulgata_, _Buccinum undatum_, _Fesus +antiquus_, _Rostellaria_, _Pes pelicana_, a _Natica_, _Lutraria_, and +_Balanus_. + +[16] That similarity of condition in which the hazel and the harder +cerealia thrive was noted by our north-country farmers of the old +School, long ere it had been recorded by the botanist. Hence such +remarks, familiarized into proverbs, as "A good _nut_ year's a good +_ait_ year;" or, "As the _nut_ fills the _ait_ fills." + +[17] For this story, see "Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland," +chap. XXV. + +[18] "In the River St. Lawrence," says Sir Charles Lyell, "the loose ice +accumulates on the shoals during the winter, at which season the water +is low. The separate fragments of ice are readily frozen together in a +climate where the temperature is sometimes thirty degrees below zero, +and boulders become entangled with them; so that in the spring, when the +river rises on the melting of the snow, the rocks are floated off, +frequently conveying away the boulders to great distances. A single +block of granite, fifteen feet long by ten feet both in width and +height, and which could not contain less than fifteen hundred cubic feet +of stone, was in this way moved down the river several hundred yards, +during the late survey in 1837. Heavy anchors of ships, lying on the +shore, have in like manner been closed in and removed. In October 1836, +wooden stakes were driven several feet into the ground, at one point on +the banks of the St. Lawrence, at high-water mark, and over them were +piled many boulders as large as the united force of six men could roll. +The year after, all the boulders had disappeared, and others had +arrived, and the stakes had been drawn out and carried away by the +ice."--'Elements,' first edition, p. 138. + +[19] The story of the Lady of Balconie and her keys is narrated in +"Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland." chap. XI. + +[20] This mode is described in a traditionary story regarding a gigantic +tribe of _Fions_, narrated in "Scenes and Legends of the North of +Scotland," chap. IV. + +[21] See "My Schools and Schoolmasters," chap XI. + +[22] I can entertain no doubt that the angular groups of palatal teeth +figured by Agassiz and the Russian geologists as those of a supposed +Placoid termed the Ctenodus, are in reality groups of the palatal teeth +of Dipterus. In some of my specimens the frontal buckler of Polyphractus +is connected with the gill-covers and scales of Dipterus, and bears in +its palate what cannot he distinguished from the teeth of Ctenodus. The +three genera resolve themselves into one. + +[23] There is a very admirable remark to this effect in the "Travelling +Memorandums" of the late Lord Gardenstone, which, as the work has been +long out of print, and is now scarce, may be new to many of my readers: +"It is certain, and demonstrated by the experience of ages and nations," +says his Lordship, in referring to the old principalities of France, +"that the government of petty princes is less favorable to the security +and interests of society than the government of monarchs, who possess +great and extensive territories. The race of great monarchs cannot +possibly preserve a safe and undisturbed state of government, without +many delegations of power and office to men of approved abilities and +practical knowledge, who are subject to complaint during their +administration, and responsible when it is at an end; or yet without an +established system of laws and regulations; so that no inconsiderable +degree of security and liberty to the subject is almost inseparable +from, and essential to, the subsistence and duration of a great +monarchy. But it is easy for petty princes to practise an arbitrary and +irregular exercise of power, by which their people are reduced to a +condition of miserable slavery. Indeed, very few of them, in the course +of ages, are capable of conceiving any other means of maintaining the +ostentatious state, the luxurious and indolent pride, which they mistake +for greatness. I heartily wish that this observation and censure may +not, in some instances, be applicable to great landed proprietors in +some parts of Britain."--Travelling Memorandums, vol. i. p. 123. 1792. + +[24] The exciting effects of a poor soil, or climate, or of severe +usage, on the productive powers of various vegetable species, have been +long and often remarked. Flavel describes, in one of his ingenious +emblems, illustrative of the influence of affliction on the Christian, +an orchard tree, which had been beaten with sticks and stones, till it +presented a sorely stunted and mutilated appearance; but which, while +the fairer and more vigorous trees around it were rich in only leaves, +was laden with fruit,--a direct consequence, it is shown, of the hard +treatment to which it had been subjected. I have heard it told in a +northern village, as a curious anecdote, that a large pear tree, which +during a vigorous existence of nearly fifty years, had borne scarce a +single pear, had, when in a state of decay, and for a few years previous +to its death, borne immense crops of from two to three bolls each +season. And the skilful gardener not unfrequently avails himself of the +principle on which both phenomena seem to have occurred,--that exhibited +in the beaten and that in the decaying tree,--in rendering his barren +plants fruitful. He has recourse to it even when merely desirous of +ascertaining the variety of pear or apple which some thriving sapling, +slow in bearing, is yet to produce. Selecting some bough which may be +conveniently lopped away without destroying the symmetry of the tree, he +draws his knife across the bark, and inflicts on it a wound, from which, +though death may not ensue for some two or three twelvemonths, it cannot +ultimately recover. Next spring the wounded branch is found to bear its +bunches of blossoms; the blossoms set into fruit; and while in the other +portions of the plant all is vigorous and barren as before, the dying +part of it, as if sobered by the near prospect of dissolution, is found +fulfilling the proper end of its existence. Soil and climate, too, +exert, it has been often remarked, a similar influence. In the united +parishes of Kirkmichael and Culicuden, in the immediate neighborhood of +Cromarty, much of the soil is cold and poor, and the exposure ungenial; +and "in most parts, where hardwood has been planted," says the Rev. Mr. +Sage of Resolis, in his "Statistical Account," "it is stinted in its +growth, and bark-bound. Comparatively young trees of ash," he shrewdly +adds, "_are covered with seed_,--_an almost infallible sign that their +natural growth is checked_. The leaves, too, fall off about the +beginning of September." + + + + +VALUABLE + +LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC WORKS, + +PUBLISHED BY + +GOULD AND LINCOLN, + +59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON. + + +ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY FOR 1859; or, Year-Book of Facts in +Science and Art, exhibiting the most important Discoveries and +Improvements in Mechanics, Useful Arts, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, +Astronomy, Meteorology, Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, Geography, +Antiquities, &c., together with a list of recent Scientific +Publications; a classified list of Patents; Obituaries of eminent +Scientific Men; an Index of Important Papers in Scientific Journals, +Reports, &c. Edited by DAVID A. WELLS, A.M. With a Portrait of Prof. +O.M. Mitchell, 12mo, cloth, $1.25. + +VOLUMES OF THE SAME WORK for years 1850 to 1858 inclusive. With +Portraits of Professors Agassiz, Silltman, Henry, Bache, Maury, +Hitchcock, Richard M. Hoe, Profs. Jeffries Wyman, and H.D. Rogers. 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GOULD, M.D. Elegant quarto volume, +cloth, $6.00. + + +THE LANDING AT CAPE ANNE; or, THE CHARTER OF THE FIRST PERMANENT COLONY +ON THE TERRITORY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COMPANY. Now discovered, and first +published from the ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT, with an inquiry into its +authority, and a HISTORY OF THE COLONY, 1624-1628, Roger Conant, +Governor. By J. WINGATE THORNTON. 8vo, cloth, $1.50. + + --> "A rare contribution to the early history of New + England."--_Mercantile Journal._ + + +LAKE SUPERIOR; Its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals. By L. +AGASSIZ and others. One volume octavo, elegantly Illustrated, cloth, +$3.50. + + +THE HALLIG; OR, THE SHEEPFOLD IN THE WATERS. A Tale of Humble Life on +the Coast of Schleswig. Translated from the German of BIERNATSKI, by +Mrs. GEORGE P. MARSH. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author. 12mo, +cloth, $1.00. + + As a revelation of an entire new phase in human society, this work + strongly reminds the reader of Miss Bremer's tales. In originality + and brilliancy of imagination, it is not inferior to those:--its + aim is far higher. + + +THE CRUISE OF THE NORTH STAR; A Narrative of the Excursion made by Mr. +Vanderbilt's Party in the Steam Yacht, in her Voyage to England, Russia, +Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Malta, Turkey, Madeira, &c. By Rev. JOHN +OVERTON CHOULES, D.D. With elegant Illustrations, &c. 12mo, cloth, gilt +backs and sides, $1.50; cloth, gilt, $2.00; Turkey, gilt, $3.00. + + +PILGRIMAGE TO EGYPT; embracing a Diary of Explorations on the Nile, with +Observations Illustrative of the Manners, Customs, and Institutions of +the People, and of the present condition of the Antiquities and Ruins. +By Hon. J.V.C. SMITH, late Mayor of the City of Boston. With numerous +elegant Engravings. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. + + + + +POETICAL WORKS. + + +COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM COWPER; with a Life and Critical +Notices of his Writings. 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It contains, also, several + additional new plates and cuts, the old plates re-engraved and + improved, and an Appendix of new Notes. + + "It is withal one of the most beautiful specimens of English + composition to be found, conveying information on a most difficult + and profound science, in a style at once novel, pleasing, and + elegant."--DR. SPRAGUE--_Albany Spectator._ + + +THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE CREATOR; or, the Asterolepsis of Stromness, with +numerous Illustrations. With a Memoir of the Author, by LOUIS AGASSIZ. +12mo, cloth, $1.00. + + DR. BUCKLAND _said he would give his left hand to possess such + power of description as this man._ + + +TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS; or, Geology in its Bearings on the two +Theologies, Natural and Revealed. "Thou shalt be in league with the +stones of the field."--_Job._ With numerous elegant Illustrations. One +volume, royal 12mo, cloth, $1.25. + + This is the largest and most comprehensive Geological Work that the + distinguished author has yet published. It exhibits the profound + learning, the felicitous style, and the scientific perception, + which characterize his former works, while it embraces the latest + results of geological discovery. But the great charm of the book + lies in those passages of glowing eloquence, in which, having + spread out his facts, the author proceeds to make deductions from + them of the most striking and exciting character. The work is + profusely illustrated by engravings executed at Paris, in the + highest style of French art. + + +THE CRUISE OF THE BETSEY; or, a Summer Ramble among the Fossiliferous +Deposits of the Hebrides. With Rambles of a Geologist; or, Ten Thousand +Miles over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. + + Nothing need be said of it save that it possesses the same + fascination for the reader that characterizes the author's other + works. + + +MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS; or, the Story of my Education. AN +AUTOBIOGRAPHY. With a full-length Portrait of the Author. 12mo, cloth, +$1.25. + + This is a personal narrative, of a deeply interesting and + instructive character, concerning one of the most remarkable men of + the age. + + +MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND AND ITS PEOPLE. With a fine Engraving of +the author. 12mo, cloth, $1.00. + + --> A very instructive book of travels, presenting the most perfectly + life-like views of England and its people to be found in any language. + + --> _The above six volumes are furnished in sets, printed and bound + in uniform style_: viz., + + +HUGH MILLER'S WORKS, Six Volumes. 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