interesting to the antiquary-which has been described by some writers as formed of a species of stone unknown in the district, and which, according to a popular tradition, was transported from the Continent-is evidently composed of this Quartzose Sandstone, and must have been dug out of one of the neighboring quarries. And so coherent is its texture, that the storms of, perhaps, ten centuries have failed to obliterate its rude but impressive sculptures.

The limestones of both the upper and lower formations of the system have been wrought in Moray with tolerable success. In both, however, they contain a considerable per centage of siliceous and argillaceous earth. The system, though occupying an intermediate place between two metalliferous deposits, the grauwacke and the carboniferous limestone, - has not been found to contain workable veins any where in Britain, and in Scotland no metallic veins of any kind, with the exception of here and there a few slender threads of ironstone, and here and there a few detached crystals of galena. Its wealth consists exclusively in building and paving stone, and in lime. Some of the richest tracts of corn land in the kingdom rest on the Old Red Sandstone the agricultural valley of Strathmore, for instance, and the fertile plains of Easter-Ross: Caithness has also its deep, corn-bearing soils, and Moray has been well known for centuries as the granary of Scotland. But in all these localities the fertility seems derived rather from an intervening subsoil of tenacious diluvial clay, than from the rocks of the system. Wherever the clay is wanting, the soil is barren. In the moor of the Milbuy,- a tract about fifty square miles in extent, and lying within an hour's walk of the Friths of Cromarty and Beauly, a thin covering of soil rests on the sandstones of the

lower formation. And so extreme is the barrenness of this mour, that notwithstanding the advantages of its semi-insular situation, it was suffered to lie as an unclaimed common until about twenty-five years ago, when it was parcelled out among the neighboring proprietors.

CHAPTER XI.

Geological Physiognomy. -Scenery of the Primary Formations; Gneiss, Mica Schist, Quartz Rock. Of the Secondary; the Chalk Formations, the Oolite, the New Red Sandstone, the Coal Measures. Scenery in the Neighborhood of Edinburgh. - Aspect of the Trap Rocks. The Disturbing and Denuding Agencies.

Distinctive Features of the Old Red Sandstone. - Of the Great ConglomOf the Ichthyolite Beds. The Burn of Eathie.-The Upper Old Red Sandstones. - Scene in Moray.

erate.

PHYSIOGNOMY is no idle or doubtful science in connection with Geology. The physiognomy of a country indicates, almost invariably, its geological character. There is scarce a rock among the more ancient groups that does not affect its peculiar form of hill and valley. Each has its style of landscape; and as the vegetation of a district depends often on the nature of the underlying deposits, not only are the main outlines regulated by the mineralogy of the formations which they define, but also in many cases the manner in which these outlines are filled up. The coloring of the landscape is well nigh as intimately connected with its Geology as the drawing. The traveller passes through a mountainous region of gneiss. The hills, which, though bulky, are shapeless, raise their huge backs so high over the brown, dreary moors, which, unvaried by precipice or ravine, stretch away for miles from their feet, that even amid the heats of midsummer the snow gleams in streaks and patches from their summits. And yet so vast is their extent of base, and their tops so truncated, that they seem but half-finished hills notwithstanding — hills interdicted somehow in the forming, and the work stopped ere the upper

stories had been added. He pursues his journey, and enters a district of micaceous schist. The hills are no longer truncated, or the moors unbroken; the heavy ground-swell of the former landscape has become a tempestuous sea, agitated by powerful winds and conflicting tides. The picturesque and somewhat fantastic outline is composed of high, sharp peaks, bold, craggy domes, steep, broken acclivities, and deeply serrated ridges; and the higher hills seem as if set round with a framework of props and buttresses, that stretch out on every side like the roots of an ancient oak. He passes on, and the landscape varies; the surrounding hills, though lofty, pyramidal, and abrupt, are less rugged than before; and the ravines, though still deep and narrow, are walled by ridges no longer serrated and angular, but comparatively rectilinear and smooth. But the vegetation is even more scanty than formerly; the steeper slopes are covered with streams of debris, on which scarce a moss or lichen finds root; and the conoidal hills, bare of soil from their summits half way down, seem so many naked skeletons, that speak of the decay and death of nature. All is solitude and sterility. The territory is one of Quartz rock. Still the traveller passes on: the mountains sink into low swellings; long rectilinear ridges run out towards the distant sea, and terminate in bluff, precipitous headlands. The valleys, soft and pastoral, widen into plains, or incline in long-drawn slopes of gentlest declivity. The streams, hitherto so headlong and broken, linger beside their banks, and then widen into friths and estuaries. The deep soil is covered by a thick mantle of vegetation-by forest trees of largest growth, and rich fields of corn; and the solitude of the mountains has given place to a busy population. He has left behind him the primary regions, and entered on one of the secondary districts.

And these less rugged formations have also their respective styles-marred and obliterated often by the Plutonic agency, which imparts to them in some instances its own character, and in some an intermediate one, but in general distinctly marked, and easily recognized. The Chalk presents its long inland lines of apparent coast, that send out their rounded headlands, cape beyond cape, into the wooded or corn-covered plains below. Here and there, there juts up at the base of the escarpement a white, obelisk-like stack; here and there, there opens into the interior a narrow, grassy bay, in which noble beeches have cast anchor. There are valleys without streams; and the landscape a-top is a scene of arid and uneven downs, that seem to rise and fall like the sea after a storm. We pass on to the Oolite: the slopes are more gentle, the lines of rising ground less continuous, and less coastlike; the valleys have their rivulets, and the undulating surface is covered by a richer vegetation. We enter on a district of New Red Sandstone. Deep, narrow ravines intersect elevated platforms. There are lines of low precipices, so perpendicular and so red, that they seem as if walled over with new brick; and here and there, amid the speckled and mouldering sandstones, that gather no covering of lichen, there stands up a huge, altar-like mass of lime, mossy and gray, as if it represented a remoter antiquity than the rocks. around it. The Coal Measures present often the appearance of vast lakes frozen over during a high wind, partially broken afterwards by a sudden thaw, and then frozen again. Their shores stand up around them in the form of ridges and mountain chains of the older rocks; and their surfaces are grooved into flat valleys and long lines of elevation. Take, as an instance, the scenery about Edinburgh. The Ochil Hills and the Grampians form the distant shores of the seeming lake